AIDS cuts staple food production

The AIDS pandemic has reduced the country's production of staple food crops by up to 60 percent, news reports on Thursday quoted an AIDS consultant of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) as saying. "Maize output in communal and resettlement farming has fallen 61 percent because of AIDS, cotton output has been reduced by 47 percent and vegetable production has fallen by 49 percent," the consultant said. The AIDS pandemic, which is estimated to be claiming about 300 people a day in Zimbabwe, is negatively affecting the agriculture industry which employs more people than any other sector in the country. Tsetse fly control centre to be set up Zimbabwe has been suggested to become the regional centre for tsetse fly control in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), news reports said. The reports said the recommendation follows Zimbabwe's contribution in developing and improving tsetse control techniques such as ground and aerial spraying and the use of artificial and live baits. Zimbabwe, together with Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique are participating in a European Union-funded Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Control Programme launched in 1986 and due to end in December this year.