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Aids threatens Moz agriculture
24/08/2004 21:42 - (SA)
Rome - The UN food agency warned on Tuesday that HIV/Aids was threatening subsistence agriculture in Mozambique and the country's food supply, with "long-term decline".
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said a new study carried out in Mozambique showed the disease is impoverishing agricultural households in the southern African country.
FAO said the study showed 45% of respondents from households affected by HIV/Aids said they had reduced the area under cultivation and 60% said they had reduced the number of crops grown. The result meant that many varieties of grains, tubers, legumes and vegetables were being lost, it said.
"This study documents an alarming trend affecting millions of the poorest rural households. "The problem affects not only Mozambique, but also countries across southern and eastern Africa, where HIV/Aids is just as big a problem," said FAO's Marcela Villarreal, an expert on the disease.
More than 1.3 million people out of Mozambique's 18 million population are thought to be living with HIV/Aids.
FAO predicted that by 2020 the country will have lost over 20% of its agricultural labour force to the disease.
Across the nine hardest-hit African countries, all in southern and eastern Africa, the UN agency forecast an
Aids-related loss to agriculture of between 13% in Tanzania to 26% in Namibia.
Anne Waterhouse, author of the study, said the results showed the disease is likely to have a "highly negative" impact on old fashioned farming know-how, the way traditional farming methods are passed from generation to generation.
The agency said keeping traditional crop varieties acted as an insurance policy against hunger "since they are adapted to local conditions and will produce a minimal harvest even during Africa's recurrent droughts".
"Hybrid or "improved" seeds, which do not withstand drought as well as traditional seeds, require inputs, such as fertilizer and plentiful water, that are often beyond the means of the poorest farmers", FAO said.
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