Agricultural institutes urged on AIDS response

The UN on Monday urged eastern and southern African agricultural institutions to step up efforts against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In a joint report launched at the annual Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) session in Geneva, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and UNAIDS warned that the effects of HIV/AIDS on agricultural production was threatening millions of people with poverty and hunger. "For many rural households in these countries, HIV/AIDS has turned what used to be a food shortage into a food crisis," UNAIDS executive director, Peter Piot, said in a statement. UNAIDS estimated that some 30 million people living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa were living in rural areas. "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," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf confirmed. According to FAO, since 1985 some 7 million farm workers have died of AIDS-related illnesses in hard-hit African countries. "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 report concluded. Access the full report: http://www.fao.org/hivaids/publications/moa.pdf