African economies: HIV and Aids were having a significant impact on Africa's ability to feed itself and the disease was taking farmers and workers off the land, this against a pre-existing backdrop of declining food production.
The British Association Festival of Science which is taking place this week at Trinity College, Dublin, included a session yesterday on how Africa needs different kinds of solutions to overcome its food supply problems. There were presentations on a new drought-resistant strain of rice for Africa and on how the spread of HIV was emptying the fields and further diminishing the supply of food.
"Agricultural production is the economy of Africa," said Annmarie Kormawa, of the Africa Rice Centre in Benin. Because agriculture provided raw materials, export earnings, employment and income as well as food, the HIV pandemic was putting the livelihood of African farmers in "great danger", she said.
The problems were worst in south and east Africa, where HIV has had the greatest impact. A number of studies had been conducted to assess the effects on farming.
Rwanda, for example, had lost 60 to 80 per cent of its labour force in some areas, while some districts in Kenya had seen up to 68 per cent of arable land go out of production.
In Malawi, about 70 per cent of farming households were experiencing labour shortages because of HIV infection and 45 per cent of farms there had to contend with delays in essential work such as planting, weeding and harvesting.
The impact could be seen in dozens of countries. In Burkina Faso, some 20 per cent of rural families had reduced their agricultural output or even abandoned their farms because of HIV.
The virus was affecting farmers in a variety of ways, said Ms Kormawa, who is head of the SWIHA (Systemwide Initiative on HIV/AIDS and Agriculture) within the Benin Rice Centre. "People are changing their farming systems from labour-intensive to low-labour crops."
Many low-labour crops delivered a poorer cash return than the more labour-intensive ones such as coffee, putting further financial pressure on farmers. This cash-crop decline was evident in many areas of Kenya.
The SWIHA programme was aimed at finding ways to counter the lost labour in a manner suited to African farming conditions, Ms Kormawa said. "We believe that using these technologies will allow people to continue their work."
Her centre was attempting to develop a new threshing machine which could be built and maintained in farming communities. This would make harvesting less labour-intensive. Their goal was to develop approaches suited to these types of local communities.
The programme was taking the broadest possible view, including initiatives which could be as simple as encouraging households, particularly women, to cultivate gardens in their back yards. SWIHA was showing women what to plant and how to cultivate plants to provide food for their families. It was also showing them how they could bring in cash by selling some of their produce.
This required a highly-participative approach, she acknowledged. "It lets them get involved and join together. That is why we need a collaborative approach."
Ms Kormawa maintained that agricultural organisations across Africa should become involved directly in HIV-related initiatives given the severe blow Aids had dealt to agriculture.