The HIV/AIDS pandemic is threatening agricultural development in the poorest areas of the world. HIV/AIDS affects more than the health of individuals: it undermines household economies, pushing entire rural communities towards poverty. These communities need urgent action to protect the hard-won achievements in reducing rural poverty and stimulating agricultural growth.

HIV/AIDS is increasingly a rural disease. When it affects farming families, it has devastating effects. Families lose labour due to sickness, death and trauma. Consequently, they are forced to take children out of school, change crop cultivation patterns or leave fields fallow. They use savings and sell assets to pay for medical bills and funeral expenses. Widows leave their fields to their late husbands’ families. Parents die before they pass on agricultural knowledge and skills to their children. This results in widespread poverty and food insecurity.

The impacts of the disease are cumulative and the effects spread far beyond households. Research from the Overseas Development Institute, UK, traces the impacts of HIV/AIDS from affected households and farming communities to the rural economy and the agricultural sector as a whole.

Impacts upon the rural economy include:

• diminished government services due to sickness or the death of staff
• a loss of remittances as urban workers fall sick and return to the villages
• depressed prices for farm produce as domestic demand falls and poverty levels rise.

Preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and caring for patients are obvious priorities for policymakers. Health, education and nutrition programmes are vital. However, many areas also need specific policies for reversing the negative impacts within the agricultural sector. Policymakers must consider HIV/AIDS alongside other impacts and causes of poverty and vulnerability. It is important to avoid HIV/AIDS ‘exceptionalism’, whereby affected households are treated, and sometimes stigmatised, as a special case.

Food transfers are a common response in countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates. Food packages may indeed be the most appropriate response for young children facing malnutrition. However, cash transfers may be a more cost-effective method for households in general. For example, evidence from India shows that one rupee of food costs two rupees to acquire and deliver. More research is needed to discover effective and affordable ways of offering social protection to all affected groups.

The research makes several policy suggestions:

• Providing school meals or bursaries to prevent labour-poor families withdrawing children from school.
• Improving rural finance systems and encouraging new forms of insurance, such as burial societies, to reverse household losses of capital.
• Disseminating seed, fertilisers and labour-saving technology to affected households.
• Strengthening the rights of women and orphans to own household land after the death of a male family member.
• Offering training in business skills, fostering farmer associations and underwriting marketing schemes to minimise the impact of HIV/AIDS on supply chains.

Source(s):
‘Responding to HIV/AIDS in agriculture and related activities’, Overseas Development Institute Natural Resource Perspectives No. 98, by Rachel Slater and Steve Wiggins, March 2005 Full document.

Funded by: Overseas Development Institute; UK Department for International Development

id21 Research Highlight: 26 January 2006

Further Information:
Rural Policy and Environment Group
Overseas Development Institute
111 Westminster Bridge Road
London, SE1 7JD
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 207 922 0300
Fax: +44 (0) 207 922 0399
Contact the contributor: a.shepherd@odi.org.uk

Overseas Development Institute, UK

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'Hunger crisis: learning from southern Africa'

'HIV/AIDS and rural livelihoods – communicating NGO good practice

'HIV/AIDS and the agricultural sector in eastern and southern Africa: anticipating the consequences'

'The future for West African family farms'

'Bringing agricultural extension into action against HIV/AIDS in Africa'