|
|
|
|
The effects of HIV/AIDS on agriculture: an A to Z
HIV/AIDS and labour
In the Ugandan village of Gwanda, many households appear to be experiencing reductions in labour quality and quantity as a direct result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Productivity is initially reduced when the HIV-infected person is ill, and later the supply of household labour declines even further with the death of that person. Moreover, more than one adult per family is most likely infected, given the heterosexual nature of HIV transmission in Africa.
Labour-intensive farming systems with low levels of mechanization and agricultural input use are particularly vulnerable to the impact of HIV/AIDS as the economic return to labour tends to be low.
A compounding factor is that infection rates are higher among women, who account for as much as 70 percent of the agricultural labour force and 80 percent of food production in some developing countries.
In addition, household members will devote productive time to caring for the sick persons, and traditional mourning customs, which can last as long as 40 days for some family members, can adversely affect labour availability.
|
|
While the farming system changes in response to labour constraints introduced by HIV/AIDS, other sectors of the local economy that require workers are nevertheless able to command some of whatever labour is available. In a fishing village near Gwanda, in spite of numerous deaths due to HIV/AIDS, there are still plenty of fishermen. Those who die from the disease, it seems, are quickly replaced by others.
Thus the attraction of fishing villages and probably other regional towns and even the capital, Kampala, all act as competitors in the market for young male workers, and thus may take labour away from agriculture in the area. These constraints are then further exacerbated by the high level of deaths in an already labour-depleted farming village.
...and land use
The effect of HIV/AIDS in reducing the number of household members available to cultivate crops and large areas of land has led to substantial reductions in land use in many of the communities studied, especially in Gwanda.
The cultivation of Robusta coffee and matooke ( plantain bananas) as main crops in combination with a wide range of other annual and perennial crops is the predominant farming system in Gwanda.
Where formerly larger areas were planted to banana and coffee, such farms are being abandoned (many having reverted to bush) due to the lack of household labour or money to pay for temporary help to weed, mulch and control against weevil infestations.
And, with the disease affecting people in their most productive years (ages 15 to 45), many households now consist of orphaned children and their grandparents or other senior relatives, with few young adult family members who would otherwise have done much of the crop cultivation.
...and soil fertility
There are initial signs that an indirect effect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is the reduction of soil fertility. This appears to be the result, in part, to a reluctance by farmers to carry out long-term soil conservation measures. This may well be because such measures do not yield an immediate result and are also labour-demanding.
In Rakai District in Uganda, for example, the banana plantations used to be either mulched by residues of the plantation, where the nutrients of the same plot are recycled, or with grass cut and carried from the open fields, the latter practice requiring considerable labour that was previously hired.
This alternative practice is reportedly decreasing because of the expense of hiring farm workers. The farmers themselves frequently do not have the time and energy to carry out these tasks.
...and pests and plant diseases
A cause of decreased production in the coffee shambas of Gwanda has been an increase in insect infestations, particularly of large black stinging ants. These insects are discouraging farmers from working on the starchy crops that they have been trying to cultivate on their run-down coffee shambas.
This situation is now considered critical as most plots have reverted so far that it is no longer economic for any but the wealthiest or most labour-endowed households to either recover their old coffee trees or open new areas for coffee production.
...and crop varieties
There has been a general shift away from crops that are labour-demanding, like bananas and coffee, to those that are the least labour-intensive, most frequently cassava and sweet potatoes, which are easy to plant and maintain, require less attention than other crops and are also drought-resistant.
|
|
...and cropping patterns
In order to adapt to changing social, economic and environmental factors like disease, drought and erosion, farmers have responded, in many cases, by changing their cropping patterns.
A recurring pattern in a number of villages is the reduction in the cultivation of cash crops in order to concentrate all available labour on the production of main subsistence crops.
In Gwanda, declining banana cultivation has led to an increased emphasis on producing two secondary starch sources, cassava and sweet potatoes, and to a lesser degree on yams and sorghum (the latter being used for beer brewing and thus providing a source of cash income for some households). These crops are also more easily stored than bananas.
The apparent transition in Gwanda from a banana-based farming system to a cassava-based system may be considered a period of experimentation and forms part of the epidemic-impact coping process.
...and land tenure and inheritance
As increasing numbers of women are left widowed, becoming de facto heads of households, with their rights to land already constrained by traditional inheritance customs, their access to land is automatically constrained.
In practice, both cultivation rights (in the case of the tenants) and land title (in the case of the titleholders) are inherited through the male line and women do not inherit these rights except in certain circumstances where they hold rights of trusteeship for a limited period, for example, until a male heir attains his majority. In cases where a woman holds such a trusteeship, her husband's patrilineage is likely to bring considerable pressure upon her to relinquish it. This has special implications in the case of HIV/AIDS-affected households where the woman is the survivor.
In cases where people enter into sharecropping arrangements, they may be given land that is heavily infested with perennial weeds requiring considerable manual work before planting is possible. In order that such seasonal cultivation rights do not become transformed into longer-term claims, these loans are for limited periods of around two years.
The practice of dividing land between children of both sexes (it is not uncommon for fathers to give land to daughters) when they come of age and start their own households or at the death of the father is prevalent. In polygamous households, different wives are given usage rights to their own individual plots. These plots will eventually pass to the male children. This practice has the effect of reducing holding size to uneconomic proportions.
... and livestock production
The impact of HIV/AIDS on livestock-raising practices has been felt in several ways. In Gwanda, for example, cattle husbandry has declined.
|
|
Cattle are frequently sold to pay medical bills and funeral expenses, and even if they are not sold during the sickness or after the death of a household member, the remaining family members often do not have the management skills and knowledge to care for livestock.
And decreases in labour availability mean lower levels of livestock husbandry.
As a result, there appears to be a trend towards the keeping of smaller stock, mostly pigs and poultry, which are less labour-demanding.
Farmers in Gwanda, especially young men, have also shown a keen interest in taking up beekeeping as a new income-generating activity. Honey, a non-traditional export product of Uganda, offers a good price.
