AIDS hits home

Everyone knew it would happen. AIDS is now accepted as a major cause of the slump experienced in small farmer production in Zimbabwe ? and many other countries. Most families have lost one or both parents, according to the Zimbabwean Farmer journal. The response ? as typified by Governor Border Gezi of Mashonaland ? has been partly preventive (telling young people that extreme discipline must be exercised), and partly reconstructive, with projects to encourage young people, many of them orphans, to become farmers. Regionally, a strong call 'to integrate the issue into core policy' was made recently at a conference, held in Harare in June 1998, on 'Responding to HIV/AIDS: Technology Development Needs of African Smallholder Agriculture', to ministries dealing with rural development. The lead organiser of the conference was the Southern African AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS), and supporters included SIDA-Sweden, UNDP, the World Bank, UNAIDS, ISNAR and CTA. The urgent call of the meeting is easier made than done, with phrases like 'actively respond to the needs of the emerging clientele' being used instead of recognising up front that much of the productive population, female and male, has been decimated by AIDS. Time perhaps to call the AIDS epidemic what it is: a human disaster that requires action, not empty phrases. Contact: SAfAIDS PO Box A 509 Avondale, Harare, Zimbabwe Fax: + 263 14 336195 Email: info@safaids.org.zw http://www.agricta.org/Spore/spore78Everyone knew it would happen. AIDS is now accepted as a major cause of the slump experienced in small farmer production in Zimbabwe ? and many other countries. Most families have lost one or both parents, according to the Zimbabwean Farmer journal...