Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 6/1/2005

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CONTENT:

1 - SOUTHERN AFRICA: New research questions link between food crisis and AIDS

1 - SOUTHERN AFRICA: New research questions link between food crisis and AIDS

JOHANNESBURG, 1 June (PLUSNEWS) - The link between HIV/AIDS and hunger in rural

communities has received a great deal of attention in Southern Africa, where

HIV/AIDS seems to have added a new dimension to the region's four-year-long food

crisis.

But a new report has argued that although HIV/AIDS constitutes a humanitarian

catastrophe, the impact of the epidemic was not a major cause of the region's

food crisis during 2001 and 2004.

The study by the Overseas Development Institute's (ODI) Forum for Food Security

in Southern Africa, noted that in Zimbabwe, poor policy choices were the main

reasons why the food crisis dragged on. Widespread chronic poverty also

contributed to the emergency, which at its peak, had up to 7.5 million out of a

population of 11.6 million in need of food aid.

It has generally been accepted that HIV/AIDS has contributed to the region's

food insecurity by reducing farm production and incomes and undermining the

ability of households to cope.

But there was still not enough evidence to quantify how HIV/AIDS has impacted on

farming communities, author of the report Steve Wiggins told PlusNews.

Southern Africa land expert Drimie agreed that " a great number of studies

on the impact of HIV/AIDS [in this sector] are snapshots and are largely

anecdotal, " and there was still a need for more evidence on the long-term impact

of the pandemic.

However, Drimie cautioned against the danger of " understating " HIV/AIDS, which

remained a significant factor among the entangling causes of the food crisis,

alongside drought and the impact of donor-driven economic reform programmes.

The United Nations has also emphasised the " triple threat " of HIV/AIDS, food

insecurity and weakened state capacity as triggering the humanitarian crisis

that at its height threatened more than 14 million people in Southern Africa.

" This is in no way an attempt to say AIDS doesn't matter ... HIV/AIDS is killing

almost half a million people every year in the six countries most affected by

the 2002 food crisis [Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and

Zimbabwe] ... it is a terrible tragedy, " Wiggins stressed.

However, it did not have a " big enough impact to explain the magnitude of

harvest failures [in the region], " he pointed out.

To illustrate the extent to which the pandemic impacted on production, the ODI

research looked at the 25 percent HIV prevalence rate in Zimbabwe in 2003, and

estimated that if the disease on average took 8 years to progress from initial

infection to death - with the final two years as sick and invalided, and adding

another year to reflect periodic sickness in the initial six years - then about

9 percent of the labour force would be out of action at any one time.

" Assum[ing] that this translates into the same loss of agricultural production,

then the epidemic causes losses of less than 10 percent ... At this rate, the

epidemic cannot account for more than a minor proportion of the harvest losses

seen, " the report said.

In the other countries of the region hit badly by harvest failures other than

Swaziland, prevalence rates are lower than in Zimbabwe, which would also reduce

the production impacts, the report said.

According to Wiggins, labour was only one factor of production contributing at

most to 50 percent of output. In a field of maize, for example, there were other

factors of production to consider; such as land, seed, animal traction and

fertiliser, Wiggins said.

Although, the impact on coping with HIV/AIDS was " severe " , this was largely for

households with sick members - " again perhaps 9 percent of households at any one

time in the worst affected countries " , the report found.

But if those households that have been affected by the disease both now and in

the recent past are added, then the proportion rises to 20 percent or more,

Wiggins noted.

A Michigan State University study on HIV/AIDS and the agricultural sector in

Eastern and Southern Africa came to similar conclusions as the ODI report. It

found that the initial wealth of households, the sex of the deceased, and the

ability of the household to attract new members mitigated the effects of

HIV/AIDS.

Professor Jayne from Michigan State University pointed out during an

international conference on 'HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security', held

earlier this year in South Africa, that " it's difficult to disentangle the AIDS

impact from everything else affecting agriculture " .

The cassava 'boom' in Southern Africa was a case in point: according to the 'new

variant famine hypothesis', the impact of HIV/AIDS had caused high-value, highly

nutritious crops, such as cereals and oilseeds, to be replaced by less

nutritious ones like cassava.

But the new variant famine had failed to take into account that " major changes

in agricultural policy have occurred ... [and] veered some farming systems in

the region toward tuber crops " .

State agencies that provided inputs for maize on credit and bought up harvests

in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe had either been eliminated or scaled back

significantly starting in the early 1990s as part of economic reforms.

These policy changes had reduced the " financial profitability of growing maize

.... and had shifted cropping incentives towards other food crops, especially

those relatively unresponsive to fertilizer application, such as cassava " , Jayne

said in his study.

Nevertheless, the ODI report acknowledged that HIV/AIDS interacted " strongly "

with poverty - as seen by the modest impact of the disease in relatively well

off rural households - intensifying the vulnerabilities of poorer households.

" But if HIV/AIDS is not a prime cause of a food crisis, it is a crisis in itself

.... Not surprisingly some question why the food crisis attracted an

international humanitarian appeal, while HIV/AIDS did not, " the report noted.

To view the ODI report: <A

HREF= " http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001240/index.php "

TARGET= " _blank " >www.sarpn.org.za</A>[ENDS]

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