Many HIV infected people return from the cities to their villages when they fall ill. Agricultural development policies rarely take this fact into consideration. Besides the human suffering, AIDS threatens sustainable agriculture and rural development. Sickness and death of an adult family member can result in the inability of a household to cultivate the land. Tending for the sick can take a considerable amount of time, which is then no longer available for agriculture.
Families can wind up having to sell off their livestock.
AIDS widows may have no legal rights to land and property after their husbands' death due to customary inheritance laws. Many women therefore often have to leave their homes and are facing severe poverty. In rural areas of most developing countries, therefore, the spread of HIV is accelerated by migration, trade, the movement of refugees and strengthened rural-urban linkages. Households affected by the pandemic should have better access to and control over resources such as extension, credit and land. Many traditional subsistence areas are also vulnerable if people are migrating from there in the agricultural lean season.