Throughout most of Africa agriculture is the main source of livelihood for rural households. The rapid spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, however, is threatening smallholder agricultural production and food security. In response, ministries of agriculture and rural development organisations need to integrate HIV/AIDS into their core rural development policies and programmes. The FOCUS programme in Zimbabwe is a good example of an effective response at the community level.
Studies in Zimbabwe and Eastern Africa show that rural households affected by HIV/AIDS have less area under crop cultivation and smaller harvests. They suffer from a shortage of labour and lack of inputs when the provider dies, and lack draught power and farm implements when they are sold to cover medical and funeral expenses. Smallholder farmers often switch from labour intensive crops such as cotton and tobacco, to less labour intensive crops such as cassava and maize. Livestock productivity also declines as livestock management is affected by labour constraints. The workload for women in AIDS-affected households increases due to the demands of domestic work and care-giving, leaving them little time for farm duties.

Responses by the agricultural sector

In the 1980s, responses to HIV/AIDS focused primarily on prevention. The focus of attention, however, has shifted to mitigation of the impact at household and community levels. In 1999, FAO reported that a new clientele for smallholder agriculture is emerging, mainly composed of adolescents, the elderly, widowed women, and sick or weakened adults. This new clientele, left with little resources, requires a paradigm shift in the current agricultural research and extension methodologies.

Agricultural extension services need to focus more on appropriate technology already available for adaptation by resource-poor agricultural systems. This includes intercropping to reduce weeding time, zero or minimum tillage to reduce the need for expensive ploughs and oxen, and using trap crops to attract pests away from other crops. Agricultural extension services also need to integrate gender issues into their programmes, since women and youth are emerging as the leading players in smallholder agriculture in the HIV/AIDS era.
Agricultural research needs to focus more on technologies to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS in regard to labour and income constraints. These include low-input but high-yielding food and cash crops, high value food crops that are drought resistant, lighter ploughs useable by women and young people, and animal weeding technology. Research should also focus on improving labour-saving indigenous technologies such as mulching and intercropping. For livestock, research initiatives should consider development of animal breeds that require less care and development, or packaging of chemicals for dipping livestock at individual levels. Farmer participation is a central element in the process of reorientation of research and extension services if the new technologies are to be built on indigenous knowledge and emerging needs of farmers.
Existing community based initiatives targeted at alleviating labour and capital constraints need to be strengthened and expanded to new areas. For example, strengthening customary labour-sharing arrangements, traditional savings or other mutual assistance associations can ensure that households in need have a source of labour or capital. Agricultural extension programmes in collaboration with other agencies and NGOs should support and assist this process. The following is an example of how an NGO has been able to revive a traditional strategy that involves the community to restore the food security status of the community.

The FOCUS programme in Zimbabwe

In 1993 in Zimbabwe, a local church, with technical support from the Family AIDS Caring Trust (FACT) in Mutare, established the Families, Orphans and Children Under Stress (FOCUS) community-based programme in a rural area. The project's main activities include recruiting volunteers from the community to identify, register and visit orphans within a 2-kilometre radius of their homes, monitor their situation, distribute small amounts of externally provided material support, and refer urgent problems to government authorities. Some 4,000 orphans benefit from the programme. Volunteers are provided with basic training and they visit orphan households twice per month, but those orphans in greatest need, e.g. in child-headed households, are visited weekly. Orphans are supported materially with agricultural inputs (e.g. maize seed and fertiliser), primary school fees, food and blankets. Other activities undertaken by FOCUS include assistance in ploughing orphans' fields, house repairs, health care, child care, income supplementation and income-generating activities.
By 1999, the FOCUS programme had 180 volunteers in 8 rural sites and one high-density urban residential area in Mutare. The programme's total catchment is 50,000 households, with 2764 orphan households assisted. The total cost in 1998 was US$ 20,750, 60% being direct expenditure on community activities. The cost of the programme per family was US$ 9.54. FOCUS also promotes traditional community food security through a grain-saving scheme, zunde ramambo ("the chief's field"). In this scheme, people in the community contribute labour in the chief's or headman's field, and store the produce for households in need. These grain-saving schemes have meant an important source of community support to affected households. Participants indicated however, that they need fertiliser and seed to help ensure meaningful harvests that can help needy households.

Conclusions

Programmes like grain-saving schemes show that communities can be mobilised systematically, build their capacities and sustain their efforts over time with limited support. In a similar way agricultural research and extension can work with communities to develop technologies and extension programmes to help mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, this is still uncharted territory that needs to be explored.