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Authors:
Jacques du Guerny
A joint publication of UNDP and FAO
Foreword
The acute labor shortage
created by HIV/AIDS and its severe consequences for agriculture
production and food security of rural households has been well
documented- One of the promising strategies for response from the
agriculture sector to the impacts on labor is to identify the roles
for labor saving technologies (LSTs) not only in mitigation, but
also as part of prevention. Such issues are gaining practical
importance because the connection between malnutrition, hunger,
famine and HIV/AIDS is now beginning to be made. The drama is
emerging at national levels, but is also played out, often
invisibly, in a multitude of farm-households in which widows, grand
parents and children suddenly take on roles they are unprepared for.
Strategies for effective action are urgent
FAO/SDWP commissioned a paper on the issue of LSTs for the meeting
"African Asian Agricultures Against AIDS", held in Bangkok from 11
to 13 December 2002, jointly organized by UNDP South East Asia HIV
and Development Programme and FAO. The paper was discussed at the
meeting and subsequently revised. At the meeting, very concrete
examples of LSTs were also presented and will be published in a
companion paper. As the meeting confirmed the promising role of LSTs
as one of the major responses of the agriculture sector against
HIV/AIDS as well as the role South-South cooperation can play in
this area, the paper is being brought to the attention of a wider
audience working in the fields of agriculture, HIV/AIDS or, more
generally, of development.
The paper focuses on the various types and levels of constraints
faced by farm-households as a production and reproduction system
within a fanning system such as time and energy limitations created
by HIV/AIDS provoked shortages. The paper highlights the
contributions various LSTs could provide while also stressing the
conditions -including gender ones- which have to be met in order to
introduce LSTs successfully. LSTs are a partial solution to HIV/AIDS
problems, but also represent a challenge to the way agriculture is
practiced and to common policies in both agriculture and HIV/AIDS.
The focus on LSTs is a fertile field for cooperation between
sectors, between public and private institutions, North-South and
South-South cooperation.
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