HIV/Aids is threatening subsistence agriculture in much of Southern Africa with long-term decline, according to a major new study published on the Science and Development Network website. The trend that has ominous implications for the country’s food supply, warns the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
New research into subsistence agriculture in Mozambique documents the loss of many varieties of grains, tubers, legumes and vegetables due to HIV/Aids, flood and drought, according to the FAO.
The disease is ruining agricultural households. The study shows that 45% of respondents from HIV/Aids-affected households said they had reduced the area under cultivation. Even more — 60% — said they had reduced the number of crops grown.
”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 East Africa, where HIV/Aids is just as big a problem,” said FAO HIV/Aids expert Marcela Villarreal.
Study author Anne Waterhouse said the results show that HIV/Aids is likely to have a ”highly negative” impact on local knowledge around seeds. The disease affects the passing of farming expertise about traditional crops from generation to generation, as infected adults slowly become incapacitated and stop planting many varieties of crops.
”Most of the farmers use seeds that they produce themselves to grow their own crops; the way they pass on knowledge about how to identify, improve and conserve that seed is from parent to children,” she said. ”So what happens if you stop producing a certain seed type, is that the knowledge around it is not passed on.”
It is important not to lose traditional crop varieties because they act 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.
Moreover, hybrid or ”improved” seeds do not withstand drought as well as traditional seeds. They also require inputs such as fertiliser and plentiful water that are often beyond the means of the poorest farmers.
In Mozambique, more than 1,3-million people out of a total population of 18-million are thought to be living with HIV/Aids. The FAO predicts that by 2020 the country will have lost more than 20% of its agricultural labour force to HIV/Aids.
In the nine hardest-hit African countries, all in Southern and East Africa, the FAO predicts a loss of agricultural labour because of the disease, ranging from 13% in Tanzania to 26% in Namibia.
The Mozambique government estimates that more than 600 000 children have been orphaned by the disease. In response to the orphan crisis, the FAO is field-testing ways to help the children learn farming and life skills.
The study, which interviewed about 90 men and women in three communities in the Chokwe district of Mozambique late last year, was commissioned by the FAO Links project, which explores the linkages between local knowledge, gender and biodiversity, and was conducted by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. — SciDev.Net