Subsistence agriculture makes for a hard life, particularly in areas that are badly hit by HIV. Put farming and Aids together, add drought or disease, and you have a diabolical mixture of circumstances.
This assertion has become an article of faith in many African countries, not least South Africa — said to have the highest number of HIV-positive citizens in the world.
It does not, however, appear to be translating into effective agriculture and health policies for small-scale farmers in south-eastern KwaZulu-Natal, the epicentre of South Africa’s Aids pandemic. (While national HIV prevalence is put at 25%, KwaZulu-Natal has an infection rate of 33%.)
Subsistence farmers in KwaZulu-Natal typically work in remote areas with poor access to markets and agricultural services. Poverty is widespread.
The burden of tending to family members with Aids-related diseases — and the frequent death of these persons — leads to a decline in production among subsistence households, as human and financial resources are invested in taking care of people rather than crops and animals.
Lower production, in turn, causes food insecurity that exacerbates the effects of Aids — and heightens the likelihood of HIV exposure and infection. A vicious cycle is set in motion.
In light of this, the need for innovative interventions by the government to lessen the particular vulnerability of subsistence farmers to Aids seems clear. Such interventions also appear to be in short supply, however.
Just more than two years ago, the national Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs instituted its integrated food security and nutrition programme (IFSNP) aimed at encouraging different government departments — education, health and social development — to coordinate their Aids policies and efforts to improve food security.
To date, the IFSNP’s main accomplishment has been the creation of additional policies on promoting interdepartmental cooperation.
Another initiative saw KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial department of agriculture form an HIV/Aids focus group about a year ago to provide its staff with training on HIV, and to establish what other measures regional authorities could institute to help farmers deal with the effects of the pandemic.
The unit has produced 140 Aids educators to date, half of whom are responsible for providing instruction to the department itself — the other half to farm workers in KwaZulu-Natal.
But according to Sibusiso Gumede, senior livestock technician at the provincial agriculture department, there has been ”no cooperation” between the HIV/Aids unit and other sections of the department as yet. NGOs active in agriculture interviewed by IPS claimed never to have encountered any of the trainers in the course of their work.
The head of the Aids unit was not available for comment; neither was the national Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs.
However, the sentiment that emerged in discussions with NGOs and agriculture analysts was that the government appears more focused on commercial farming than subsistence agriculture at present, something that allows the concerns of small-scale farmers to be sidelined.
In addition, NGOs and analysts noted that Aids still seems to be seen as the responsibility of the Department of Health — this despite widespread rhetoric about HIV being an issue that cuts across traditional divisions of responsibility.
”Although some government officials might be eager to include Aids [in their programmes], they don’t know how to integrate it,” said Kees Swaans, a doctoral student who is researching the effects of HIV on agricultural and rural livelihoods.
All of this leaves people like Rauri Alcock, manager of the Church Agricultural Project (CAP), deeply frustrated. CAP assists people in the Msinga valley with livestock, dry land farming and communal market gardening.
Alcock believes projects such as his own have invaluable expertise to offer concerning low-cost ways of helping subsistence farmers, and that greater cooperation between officials and civic groups would give the government ”a real insight into livestock and resource discussions”.
But to date, his attempts to engage KwaZulu-Natal’s department of agriculture have either proved ”very difficult” or failed entirely. According to Alcock, officials have told him that decisions about agriculture are made ”on a political level” in the capital, Pretoria, and that this precludes discussions between provincial authorities and NGOs.
If given the chance to collaborate with the government in agriculture policy, Alcock would probably advocate increased support for the farming of millet and sorghum. These crops can grow without irrigation — no small matter in an Aids-affected household, with little labour or money to spare.
”Irrigation systems are too expensive [for small-scale farmers] and largely a problem because we live in a dry country,” Alcock said, noting that subsidies are at present awarded for the farming of maize. This crop needs a lot of watering, and is therefore only successfully planted by large commercial farmers who can afford irrigation.
Agriculture NGOs also advocate more investment in the farming of Nguni cattle, a local breed that copes better with dry African weather than other breeds — and which has greater resistance to ticks and diseases.
”Instead, the government promotes European breeds,” said Alcock, noting that these cattle need expensive medication and vaccinations, and that they are sometimes unable to survive the South African climate.
Chicken farming, which requires less expertise than cattle breeding, could also prove useful for families struggling to cope with Aids. In addition, poultry is a cheap source of the protein that is vital in maintaining the immune system of HIV-positive persons for as long as possible.
Because HIV largely affects the population group aged between 15 and 49 years, it is often parents that are lost to the pandemic. As a result, farming skills that would normally be passed from mothers and fathers to their children tend to be lost, with the new generation left ill-equipped to continue with agriculture.
Gumede believes training workshops could go some way to make up this deficit.
For the moment, however, the outlook for subsistence farmers is less than promising — and no immediate improvement is in sight. — IPS