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The Rural Face of AIDS By Marwaan Macan-Markar MEXICO CITY, May (IPS World Desk) - A United Nations agency shed light on the manner in which AIDS threatens the world's food supply. If left unchecked, declares the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), AIDS could dramatically cut both the quantity and quality of food produced in the rural regions of the poor countries hardest hit by the disease. In the 27 worst affected African countries, for example, an estimated 16 million agricultural workers could die over the next two decades due to HIV/AIDS, the FAO says in a report issued in May, 'The impact of HIV/AIDS on Food Security.' Seven million agricultural workers have died due to the disease since 1985. Countries with the highest prevalence rates of the disease could see their rural workforce cut by 26 percent by 2020, the agency warns. They include Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. "The virus is having a major impact on nutrition, food security, agricultural production and rural societies in many countries," the report states. "All dimensions of food security - availability, stability, access and use of food - are affected where the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is high." FAO studies also reveal that many agricultural and rural development institutions "can no longer achieve their planned programme outputs." The agency is painting a grim picture at a time when the world's development community is grappling with what many admit has been a failure to meet targets for feeding world's hungry. During the 1996 World Food Summit, governments and development agencies resolved to halve the number of hungry people by 2015, from 824 million to 412 million. In April, however, the FAO said the commitment could not be fulfilled. At the current rate of reducing global hunger by eight million people per year, the summit's goal will not be reached before 2030. And as the FAO pointed out this week, the devastating impact of AIDS in rural areas is only compounding the food problem. "Few crises have presented such a threat to human health and social and economic progress as does the HIV/AIDS epidemic," the agency said. The situation in Zimbabwe illustrates the point, according to the FAO: Communal agriculture output has fallen by 50 percent in five years because of HIV/AIDS and "the production of maize, cotton, sunflowers and groundnuts has been particularly affected." In Ethiopia, researchers say, AIDS-afflicted households spend 50-60 percent less time on agriculture than households not having to cope with the disease. And in Tanzania, the FAO reports, women whose husbands are ill spend 60 percent less time tending crops. "By one estimate, approximately two person-years of labour are lost by the time one person dies of AIDS, due to weakening and the time others spend giving care," says the FAO. In some countries, FAO researchers note, rural communities affected by the disease have switched from labour-intensive crops to less demanding ones. Consequently, the variety of crops has declined and cropping patterns have changed. "As a result, food supplies are less varied, with a negative impact on the nutritional quality of the diet." Even post-production activities, such as food storage and food processing, reflect the changes. "Thus, the security of food and other raw materials between harvests are at risk, including the availability of seed for subsequent cropping," the agency says. According to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the rural surge in AIDS infections is the result of numerous factors ranging from strengthened rural-urban links, increased migration, trade, and the movement of refugees. Such a situation needs to be addressed, the agency adds in a new assessment, because "agriculture provides a living for as many as 80 percent of all people in certain countries." "In sub-Saharan Africa, where the epidemic has already had a devastating impact, the worst is yet to come," says a statement by 30 AIDS experts who met under UNAIDS auspices in Switzerland last week. "In the worst affected countries, the epidemic is eroding decades of development gains." Yet, the statement adds, the world is not powerless to respond to the disease, which has resulted in the deaths of 21.8 million men, women and children since it was detected in the 1980s. Investments in AIDS prevention and care, it says, would "prevent tens of millions of new infections while extending the lives of additional millions of people already living with HIV." For
the FAO, such public health interventions need to benefit the rural
communities in the countries where AIDS is prevalent, since the
epidemic has made a "major impact on development because it
undermines three of the main determinants of economic growth: physical,
human and social capital." (END/IPS) |
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