Two UN agencies urge agriculture institutes to respond to the HIV crisis

Two United Nations agencies today urged agricultural ministries and institutions to urgently respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic ravaging many rural areas in developing countries and threatening millions with hunger.

Food consumption has been found to drop by 40 per cent in households affected by HIV/AIDS, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

“Hunger and poverty, aggravated by HIV/AIDS, create a vicious spiral,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said. “Where farmers and their families fall sick, they cultivate less land and shift to less labour-intensive and less nutritious crops, agricultural productivity decreases and hunger and malnutrition are on the rise.”

With close to 30 million of the 42 million people with HIV/AIDS living in sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. Diouf, together with UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot, today presented -- to the UN Economic and Social Council’s (ECOSOC) annual session, being held in Geneva until the 25 July -- a joint report which calls upon agricultural institutions to scale up their efforts to fight the growing scourge.

Entitled “Addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS on ministries of agriculture: focus on eastern and southern Africa,” the report highlights the impact of the disease on Ministries and emphasizes the important role they must play to address the existing food security challenges.

“The majority of African countries worst-hit by HIV/AIDS are also those heavily reliant on agriculture,” said Dr. Piot. “For many rural households in these countries, AIDS has turned what used to be a food shortage into a food crisis.”

The report recommends that the budgets of ministries of agriculture reflect the direct and indirect costs of the pandemic and the need for response measures. “Unless HIV/AIDS features in Ministries of Agriculture budgets, it is unlikely that measures to address the HIV epidemic will be introduced in core agricultural policies and activities,” the study states.