The impacts of the AIDS pandemic in Africa are devastating for many farming communities. The growing scarcity of labor is forcing changes in farming systems, and knowledge chains are broken, depriving children of their informal teachers in farming. This project analyzes the impacts on the production systems that are served by agricultural research. It creates awareness among research directors and managers of the need to revise research agendas to mitigate the effects on agricultural production and to strengthen the ability of farmers to develop and maintain ways of coping with the situation.
Healthy people provide the labor and knowledge that underpin agricultural production and innovation.
The consequent losses in labor, knowledge, and capital are forcing farming households to reduce the care they expend on their crops and livestock, to diminish the land they cultivate, and to shift to less demanding activities. The impoverishing effects are apparent not only locally, but also more widely in the economy as production declines. Communities that are affected are far from passive in the face of this onslaught, altering their use of land and resources. Institutional support, however, is often lacking. In the case of AIDS, responses by research are also affected by the toll the epidemic is taking on the institutions themselves.