CHAPTER FOUR: POSSIBLE AREAS OF MITIGATION INTERVENTIONS

Introduction

AIDS is not going away and will continue to have adverse effects on the economy of Zambia for many decades. For Zambia, like many other high-impacted countries in sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture accounts significantly to the national economy and the sector provides a livelihood for a large proportion of the population, especially poor men and women. Given the importance of the agriculture for Zambia and the dependence of its rural poor on agriculture, the long-term HIV/AIDS impacts on household food security and rural livelihoods are of particularly concern and call for the Government of Zambia to contribute to HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation.

Prevention is the “action of keeping from happening” (Oxford English Dictionary). HIV/AIDS prevention thus means addressing the causes of the AIDS epidemic with an aim of avoiding its incidence and making people less susceptible to HIV transmission. Mitigation is to “lessen the trouble caused by a difficulty” (Oxford English Dictionary). HIV/AIDS mitigation interventions thus mean actions that reduce the problems caused by HIV/AIDS related sickness/death and/or by caring for orphans and that increase the resilience of vulnerable households and communities for future shocks.

Agriculture has a crucial role to play in both prevention and mitigation. Agriculture is fundamental to poverty eradication; one of the main the root causes of vulnerability to HIV transmission. Poverty increases risk to HIV transmission through survival sex, inferior health care, increased labour migration and the associated risk of having multiple partners. Poverty reduction is thus key to HIV prevention.

For rural households that are affected by the epidemic, agricultural mitigation interventions are crucial for recovering and for achieving a degree of self-sufficiency. These households face severe labour and resource constraints, and conventional agricultural services thus may be less effective, especially those that are labour-intensive. HIV/AIDS reinforces the need for effective targeting and agricultural programmes and services should be adapted in such a way that they suit the needs and priorities of households headed by women, elderly and children, households with chronically ill members, households that suffered a recent death, and households that take care of orphans. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and other agricultural sector service providers need to take account of the fact that HIV/AIDS affected households are severely constrained by labour, are risk adverse, have sold most of their assets and thus undermined their ability to cope with external shocks like drought, are often stigmatised within communities, and until now mostly by-passed by agricultural extension services. This thus calls for agricultural mitigation interventions that are low-labour demanding, close to the homestead, that have a quick turnover and that include safety net support to reduce risk associated with innovations (e.g. accompanied food aid).

Further, gender inequality is at the core of the spread of the endemic and one of the main determinants of vulnerability to AIDS impacts. Advancing gender equality should thus be an integral part of any agricultural mitigation intervention, particularly in relation to land, property, credit, knowledge, agricultural inputs and technology.

This chapter looks at possible mitigation interventions for the following problem areas caused by HIV/AIDS in the agricultural sector: labour-shortages; declining disposable incomes; food and nutrition insecurity; inappropriate targeting by the extension services of vulnerable households and their needs; and the growing number of orphans. While this document does not address monitoring and evaluation, it should be stressed that any mitigation intervention should have a strong monitoring and evaluation component. Monitoring and evaluation should particularly focus on the effectiveness of these interventions in reducing susceptibility to HIV transmission and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS impacts in order to provide crucial lessons on what is working and what is not working. Active involvement of the different impacted households though participatory monitoring is important in this process.

4.1 Labour Saving Technologies and Practices

Lack of farm labour is a significant problem for rural households living in areas highly affected by HIV/AIDS. Evidence from FAO research and fieldwork in Sub-Saharan Africa suggests that many households in rural communities were already facing labour shortages prior to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The impact of HIV/AIDS has been to accentuate the shortages, changing the age and sex composition of the labour force and sometimes forcing households to adopt short term coping strategies, which are often harmful and sometimes irreversible. Labour constraints are particularly pressing during the following two labour peaks: October to January, when land preparation, planting and weeding is taking place, and during April to June, when harvesting starts and most households also begin with their gardening activities. Affected households try to cope with the loss of labour by involving children more in productive and domestic activities and by longer working hours for the non-sick. In reality, however, most households are not coping and have to reduce the area under cultivation, decrease the amounts of weeding, and shift to less labour-demanding crops (FAO-IP 2002)^[7]. Small-scale agriculture in Zambia (and most of sub-Saharan Africa) is particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS impact due to its high dependence on family labour.

A possible intervention area to mitigate the HIV/AIDS induced labour problems and thus freeing up people’s time for productive and income generating activities are labour saving technologies and practices. Numerous labour saving technologies and practices already exist, such as crop diversification to spread labour requirements and harvests more evenly throughout the year; water harvesting techniques; lighter ploughs and tools that could be used by older children, women and elderly; and low-tillage techniques like conservation agriculture. There is thus a need for MACO and other key stakeholders to raise awareness on these technologies and practices and to facilitate their adoption among vulnerable households through e.g. a farmer field schools approach, in which groups of farmers learn about a specific topic through observations, discussions, analysis and sharing.

There is a specific need for reducing women’s work burden, since mostly women care for the sick while also being responsible for many agricultural activities. In fact, analysis of the labour calendar (Appendix 2) compiled during the participatory planning process showed that female headed households contribute more to farm labour than their male counterparts. Labour saving technologies and practices that would reduce women’s time spent on domestic and food-processing activities include a/o: fuel-efficient stoves, agroforestry technologies and grinding mills. The next sections will look specifically at conservation agriculture and agroforestry.

Conservation Farming

Land preparation and weeding are the most time and energy demanding tasks. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and other key stakeholders could support affected households in mitigating labour constraints for land preparation and weeding by facilitating the adoption of conservation farming practices through e.g. women groups, demonstration sites, and farmer field schools. Conservation agriculture represents a farming concept that includes minimum tillage and direct planting techniques, the introduction of soil cover and residues to suppress weeds and sometimes the use of chemical means to suppress weeds. Conservation agriculture spreads the labour peaks over time by preparing the land during the dry season and facilitates early planting: when the rains commence, farmers are able to plant their crops directly in unprepared soils.

In Zambia, conservation farming involves several key practices: dry-season land preparation using minimum tillage systems; crop residue retention; seeding and input application in fixed planting stations and nitrogen fixing crop rotations. The minimum tillage techniques being practiced among HIV/AIDS affected households in Choma district include mainly potholing and to a lesser extent pit farming and ripping (Table 1). Potholing seems to be particular popular and some of the benefits of this practice are: reduced dependence on animal draught power, timely planting and good yields.

Table 2: Minimum tillage method practiced by household type in Choma district (n = 69)

Source: Participatory planning exercise (2004)

Weeding is another labour intensive task for rural small farmers and there is the need to minimize this burden. In Choma district, weeding has been identified as the most time consuming activity, especially for female headed households who are already constrained with labour: 84% of female headed households with orphans and 75% of the female headed households with PLWHA interviewed during the participatory planning mentioned weeding as the most constraining labour activity.

T. Friedrich, 2003: Zamwipe

Statistically, it takes 70-80 days to hand weed 1 hectare of land (CFU 2003). In terms of labour distribution, women and children are the ones who are most involved in weeding. Some technologies and practices that help to suppress weeds include intercropping with leguminous crops (cover crops); mulching; and applying a benevolent herbicide. The ZAMWIPE technology - a light herbicide applier - being promoted by the Zambia Conservation Farming Unit provides an important alternative to hand hoe weeding. The ZAMWIPE is light and easy to use, requires low herbicide application rates, and can save up to 54 labour days per hectare, hence making it suitable for households keeping people living with HIV/AIDS that are constrained by labour. The ZAMWIPE has become even more important since under pressure, households, (especially female headed ones with orphans) involve children in weeding. For instance, girls in female headed households with PLWHA contribute significantly to agricultural activities. This may affect their schooling, since the start of the farming season coincides with the third term of the school calendar (between first week of September and the first week of December). In Choma district, practices like cover cropping and the use of herbicides and the ZAMWIPE for weed control were found not to be common under the respondents. It could thus be an opportunity for MACO and other agricultural stakeholders to facilitate the adoption of cover crops and the ZAMWIPE.

Agroforestry support

HIV/AIDS has a disproportional impact of women as they are overburdened in caring for the sick as well as being responsible for domestic and productive activities. Firewood fetching is one of the activities that is the responsibility of women and children and that is time demanding. Poverty in Choma district, and elsewhere in Zambia, has led to an increase in charcoal burning and firewood sale, and the subsequent cutting down of trees. As a result, firewood for domestic use is becoming scarce. The participatory planning exercise demonstrated that women and children spend between one and two hours, thrice a week, walking in search of firewood. The introduction of agroforestry interventions (tree planting and fuel efficient stoves) are thus good mitigation intervention that would free up women’s time.

Agroforestry will fulfil both productive and service functions. Its production functions include fuelwood, fodder, fruit and a range of other useful minor forest products such as medicinal products and thatching materials, while service functions include shade, fencing and soil and water conservation. Appendix 3 provides an overview of tree species with medicinal properties. Participatory planning within Choma district showed that the interest in agroforestry is high: 61% of the respondents indicated their willingness to plant trees (Table 3). Despite the strong willingness by most farmers to take up agroforestry, it is a system that is in its infancy stage in the district and most farmers lack knowledge on the appropriate tree species for fuel wood.

Fuelwood efficient stoves will also aid vulnerable households to save on quantity of wood used, with resultant effects being a reduction on the frequency and the time spent on fetching fuelwood. Although fuel efficient stoves are not common, the model can be built around the traditional stoves. To complement agroforestry, 86% of the respondents expressed their willingness to adopt the use of improved stoves.

Table 3: Household responses to willingness to plant trees and adopt fuel efficient stoves

Source: Participatory planning exercise (2004)

4.2 Income Generating Activities

For many reasons (e.g. lack of labour and the attendant reduced production, high medical and funeral costs, distress sale of assets and so forth), HIV/AIDS impacted families tend to have very few opportunities for income earning or saving. Thus, a very critical kind of mitigation intervention is to introduce ways that increase disposable income for poor and HIV/AIDS affected households and thus implicitly reduce their vulnerability to the need to resort to risky livelihood options. Income generating activities that are suitable for HIV/AIDS affected households should be low-input, low-labour demanding, close to the homestead, and have a quick turn-over, like bee-keeping, mushroom cultivation, horticulture for the market, fish farming, seed multiplication and poultry. Entrepreneurship skills training (especially business and marketing skills for women and youth) should be an integral part.

Further, Choma district is poor in terms of credit facilities for rural households. The participatory planning exercise identified two main credit sources, i.e. NGOs which offered credit to about 52% of the 21 respondents who used credit; and the government (19%). The cooperatives were the main channel for government loans, but are rather male dominated. It also seemed that credit administration was mostly to households with orphans (86%) - 8 female headed households and 10 male headed households. Only three households with PLWHA (two male headed and one female headed) benefited from these credit schemes. In order for the agricultural sector to better assist these households with credit and to lower their risk of defaulting, micro-credit schemes need to have repayment mechanisms that are suitable for households with PLWHA. This would include the provision of short-term and smaller loans, transferable loans (i.e. loans that allow a sick client to be replaced by another adult member), and emergency funds.

The participatory planning exercise in Choma district further revealed that cooperatives did not participate in marketing, therefore sales were done individually. It was observed that farmers did not have much confidence in group activities, and this weakened farmers’ capacity to bargain for better prices. MACO’s challenge here is to intensify education on group dynamics and group marketing. This will be in line with the NACP’s Agricultural Marketing and Credit component which seeks to promote group lending.

The sections below will provide more details on suitable income generating activities for HIV/AIDS affected households.

Mushroom Cultivation

To increase disposable income among HIV/AIDS affected households, MACO should promote income generating activities that are low-labour intensive, can be done close to the homestead, that have a quick turnover and that preferably provide a stable income. Mushroom production falls within this category. As a crop, mushroom is early maturing, has a ready market, a good source of income, and a very dependable source of proteins. Mushroom cultivation is a low cost enterprise and does not need sophisticated machinery and structures to flourish. Quick-growing mushrooms which can be cultivated multiple times in a year on a wide variety of agricultural waste, including maize stover, hay, straw, leaves and sawdust. The substrates, after the mushroom crop has been cultivated, can be used as composted manure.

FAO/R. Faidutti

In Zambia, the local wild mushrooms constitute the major component of people’s diets. Traditionally, women are more active in the collection and trading of wild mushrooms. However, wild mushrooms are becoming scarce and are only seasonal (the rainy season). To ensure continuous availability of mushrooms, households, especially female headed ones, must be trained and supported to grow the domesticated mushroom types/species. Only minimum external capital support is needed for acquisition of initial spawn as well as training. Participatory planning among 69 affected male and female headed households in Choma district showed that presently none of the respondents was involved in mushroom cultivation but that 57% and 43% of HIV/AIDS affected households headed by women and men, respectively, are interested to go into mushroom production. To achieve the greatest impact in increasing disposable income, interested respondents expressed support to mushroom cultivation is better targeted at individual households rather than through group efforts.

Beekeeping

Though relatively new to Choma district, beekeeping is an income generating activity that is low labour demanding and can be undertaken throughout the year. Beekeeping has the following advantages; honey is highly nutritious, hence could be of great importance for people living with HIV/AIDS. The main products of beekeeping - honey and wax are a source of income for the household with a ready market.

Beekeeping does not call for sophisticated hives or use of tree barks (which is environmentally unfriendly) as traditionally practiced. Hives can be made from locally available materials such as timber, calabashes, logs, clay and many other materials. Further, to keep bees, a household does not need to own vast amounts of land nor does beekeeping compete for resources needed for other agricultural enterprises (i.e. land, labour, finances). External support to beekeeping involves mainly assistance with acquiring protected clothing and training.

The participatory planning exercise among four communities in Choma district showed that 43% of the male headed households keeping people living with HIV/AIDS were interested in taking up beekeeping, followed by 29% of male and female headed households fostering orphans. Traditionally, honey harvesting has been more of men’s activity and one of the reasons why female headed households are less interested in beekeeping.

FAO/M. Marzot

Market Gardening

Vegetable production for market purposes is increasingly becoming an important livelihood strategy among small-scale farmers in Choma district and can contribute to over 40% of the household annual income (Kapunda et. al., 2004)^[8]. Findings from the participatory planning exercise demonstrated a high adoption of vegetable production as an income source: 79% of female headed households with orphans; 58% of male headed households with orphans; 50% of male headed households with PLWHA; and 75% of female headed households with PLWHA are cultivating vegetables to raise income.

Vegetable production for market purposes, or so-called market gardening, provides a good mitigation intervention for HIV/AIDS affected households as it is low-labour and low-capital demanding and provides quick benefits. Vegetable gardening does not compete with the household labour availability for agricultural production as most of the activities take place during the off-season, when household labour demand from other agricultural activities is low (Appendix 2). Because of the high pest and disease infestation levels in the rainy season, most households practice vegetable gardening in the dry season when pest and disease infestation levels are low and cheaper to control.

Vegetable production has a quick turn-over and it takes about two months to start realising benefits from this income source. Few external supports, besides training, is needed and vegetable production is one of the agricultural enterprises that can thrive on local resources for key production management elements, such as soil fertility enhancement and pest control. The participatory planning exercise in Choma district showed that 20% of all respondents use botanical pesticides; 15% use both conventional and botanical pesticides; 31% rely only on conventional pesticides and 34% do not use any pesticides at all. Further, most resource poor households in the district use livestock manure and compost as an alternative to chemical fertiliser in soil fertility improvement.

Given the already high adoption of vegetable gardening for market purposes, this calls for support from MACO and other agricultural stakeholders to improve and diversify existing vegetable gardens. Vegetable gardening does not only improve access to financial capital but also to nutritious foods and should thus best be linked to nutrition education and HIV/AIDS awareness efforts.

Small Livestock

Source: Dr. A. VanRooyen

Promoting and improving small livestock production is another mitigation intervention that is low labour and capital demanding and has great potential as a source of income for resource poor households affected by HIV/AIDS, particularly for female-headed households. Findings of a baseline study on “the impact of HIV/AIDS and chronic disease on poverty, agricultural production, and food security in Sinazongwe, Choma and Monze districts of Zambia” (FAO/IP, 2003) indicate that; the annual mean per capita income per household type is lowest for female headed households with about ZMK120,000 per year (an equivalent of ZMK10,000/month or US$2.5/month) compared to male headed households whose mean per capita income is about ZMK210,000 per annum.

Participatory planning in Choma district among 69 HIV/AIDS affected households, showed that all respondents owned at least a local chicken. Poultry rearing is particularly suitable for HIV/AIDS affected households as it requires low capital investment, it is easy to manage (free range feeding), it has a readily available market both within and outside the community and with multiple off springs in a year it has a quick turn-over. In addition to being a good source of income, poultry provides protein supplements to the diets of rural households and could thus be linked to nutrition education. Goat rearing has the same benefits as poultry, except that it takes two years before realising a profit and thus might be a less suitable income source for HIV/AIDS affected than poultry.

Thus, in order to increase income of HIV/AIDS affected households and implicitly reduce their vulnerability to the need to resort to risky livelihood options, MACO and other agricultural service providers could support small livestock, and particularly poultry, among HIV/AIDS affected households by providing start-up capital, training in entrepreneurship development and production skills, training in disease management (e.g. vaccinations) improved animal husbandry and by introducing improved breeds.

Fish Farming

Small scale fish farming within the dambos or other small water bodies proves to be another viable venture for HIV/AIDS affected households as it is low-labour demanding, has a quick turn-over and a ready market. It further provides HIV/AIDS affected households with highly needed proteins. Although the participatory planning exercise indicated that to date few of the respondents have started fish farming (e.g. only 5% of the female headed households with orphans are involved in fish farming), most households have access to land that is well endowed with dambos suitable for pond construction. Further, among the 69 respondents, 32% of female headed households with orphans, 25% of male headed households with orphans, 36% of male headed households with PLWHA and 8% of female headed households with PLWHA expressed interest in starting fish farming as an income sources. Interested respondents felt that the best way to promote fish farming is through an individual approach, because that way it is easier to integrate fish farming into existing farming systems at household level. However, respondents pointed out that the digging of the ponds will require a collective group effort.

To start fish farming as an income generating activity, HIV/AIDS affected and other poor households would require financial support from different organisations in order to meet the high initial costs and labour efforts associated with digging of ponds and the acquiring of fingerlings. This can either be in the form of a grant or through a small loan with a repayment mechanism suitable for HIV/AIDS affected households (see paragraph 4.2). Further, training support is needed as well as safety net support to moderate risks associated with starting new ventures.

Moreover, HIV/AIDS education and awareness raising needs to be integrated into fish farming since fishing camps are often considered breeding grounds for HIV/AIDS as women often have to resort to trade sex for for fish.

Seed Multiplication

Formal seed companies generally consider open pollinated varieties and improved varieties of legumes and roots and tuber varieties unprofitable as farmers tend to carry seed over from one year to the other. In order to fill a supply gap, the Government of Zambia adopted a non-conventional seed supply system that uses a Quality Declared Seed (QDS) classification. It is expected that the informal seed industry or local seed multiplication initiatives will provide cheaper but quality seed close to the farmer and in quantities appropriate to their requirements.

During the participatory planning exercise in the four communities in Choma district, community members expressed strong interest in seed multiplication as a source of income, especially for maize, groundnuts, cowpeas, beans, sweet potato and cassava. Seed multiplication gives return on investment within one good season and needs small quantities of fertiliser applications and foundation seed of preferred crop varieties. Seed multiplication might be less suitable for HIV/AIDS affected households as it requires time and labour. For the production of seed, proper supervision is essential as most activities are supposed to be carried out in a timely manner to avoid disqualification during inspection and thus the risk of loosing income.

4.3 Improving Food and Nutrition security

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has seriously impacted the ability of households to access sufficient, safe and nutritious food by reducing household food production, decreasing food purchasing power, depleting household assets, and exhausting social networks. Affected rural households face severe labour constraints and consequently reduce the area under crop cultivation, shift to less labour-intensive food crops and delay agricultural operations such as weeding. Further, households with people living with HIV and AIDS face significant challenges in trying to pay for medical treatment and may no longer be able to purchase important inputs such as fertiliser and improved seed, staple food or nutritious food supplements.

Living Well with HIV/AIDS (FAO, 2002)

Food insecurity, on the other hand, accelerates the spread of the virus as it makes people vulnerable to adopting risky survival strategies like transactional sex. For many households, food insecurity will simply leave women and girls with few alternatives but to turn to transactional sex in order to survive for the day rather than worrying about a disease that might affect them in the longer run. For those few on ARV treatment, food insecurity can lead to ineffective ARV intake, poorer nutritional status, increased side effects and, in some cases, patients stopping the drug mid-course. Further, malnutrition increases the likelihood of opportunistic infections and an earlier onset of AIDS.

Of course, the kinds of interventions mentioned earlier, such as labour saving technologies and practices and income generating activities can help to improve households’ access to food but more direct action can be taken for HIV/AIDS affected households such as support to homestead gardens, seed gardens and low-input crops. These interventions need to be interlinked and should go hand-in-hand with nutrition education in order to improve the nutritional status of PLWHA and their families.

Enhancing Homestead Gardens

A homestead garden is a piece of land located around or near the home whose functions are to grow crops that supplement staple crops, especially during the lean season and thus add variety and nutritional value to the diet. Home gardens have therefore an important household’s safety nets function. In addition to producing food, these gardens are sources for non-food items including spices, herbs and medicinal plants. Crops grown in homestead gardens could typically include cereals, roots and tubers, legumes and fruits which are rich in micronutrients - such as vitamins A and C, iron and sometimes, vitamin B - and in some cases contain appreciable amounts of protein and oil/fat. Homestead gardens are particularly suitable for HIV/AIDS affected households as they are low labour demanding and close to the homestead.

The planning exercise with farmers in Choma district, demonstrated that many households had homestead gardens mostly growing exotic vegetables (such as cabbage, tomatoes, onion, rape and okra) with a few fruit trees. Particularly female headed households had small gardens: 79% of female headed households with orphans, 75% of female headed households with PLWHA, 58% of male headed households with orphans, and 50% of male headed households with PLWHA have homestead gardens. Gardening is normally practiced in the dry season after harvest although some households with reliable water sources practice it all year round. Most households who are currently involved in homestead gardening are doing so on small scale citing lack of improved seed, pesticides, water lifting devices and knapsack sprayers to be the major constraints for which external assistance could be sourced to scale up production. It is suggested that any initiative to enhance homestead gardening should consider the resource constraints or implications of a more viable homestead gardening by providing it with a proper business underpinning and linking up beneficiaries to user friendly micro-credit schemes or institutions and markets.

Regrettably though, there have been very little efforts to relate what is produced in homestead gardens to nutritional requirements. Choice of the crops grown does not normally reflect nutritional diversity but the potential to sell in order to raise income. An inquiry into the situation of households as regards to special foods for the sick revealed that there are very few special foods if any given to the sick. A few households who indicated that they give special foods to the sick sourced them from elsewhere but not from their homestead gardens. This is a serious concern, given an understanding that malnutrition is a serious danger for PLWHA. Many of the conditions associated with HIV/AIDS, i.e. opportunistic infections such as diarrhoea, sore throat, nausea or vomiting are manageable through a combination of appropriate health care and better nutrition.

To overcome the poor linkage of home gardening to nutrition improvement, MACO should work together with the education, communication and health sectors to promote better nutrition through dietary diversification, which will require knowledge in utilisation of locally available food crops.

FAO, 2004

Promotion of seed gardens

In Zambia, seed gardening is understood as a practice of growing seed in gardens during the dry season so that the seed could be available for planting in the rainy season. Observations from the participatory planning exercise indicate that only 29% of the total HIV/AIDS affected households interviewed are actively involved in this activity. Further, there is little diversity in the type of crops that farmers are growing in seed gardens. The crops that are normally found growing in seed gardens are those that are not multiplied by the formal sector such as the root and tubers, legumes and to a lesser extent cereals.

Seed gardens could be a viable HIV/AIDS mitigation intervention that would provide an important safety net for household food and nutritional security, especially since it is low labour and capital demanding. A seed garden ensures that farmers have in stock the right variety of seed that they would want to plant early in the season. Growing own seed is relatively cheaper than purchasing it from retail outlets, however there are quality implications. Seed gardening is relatively cheap given that it is normally practiced in the dambos and thus does not require very sophisticated irrigation equipment.

Promotion of low-input crops

Low input crops can be grown with minimal external inputs. These crops are viable options for resource poor farmers who normally have limited accessibility to inputs due to cash shortages and inability to take risks. In Zambia, most farming systems are characterised by low input crops that are traditional in nature and normally grown without or with minimal chemical fertilizers and under poor soil fertility conditions. These crops include legumes (such as groundnuts, bambara nuts, beans and cowpeas); root and tubers (such as sweet potatoes and cassava) and cereal crops (such as sorghum and millets). Legumes are a cheap source of protein and it is needed to develop and repair the body and also to keep the immune system active. Combining legumes with cereals gives a proper balance. In addition, legumes are important in the maintenance of soil fertility because they fix nitrogen and therefore minimises the use of inorganic fertilisers which are relatively expensive. Root and tubers and cereals are important sources of energy.

The promotion of improved varieties of low input crops could be a viable intervention for HIV/AIDS affected households whose food security increasingly depends on production of low input crops. The planning exercise with farmers in Choma district revealed that most of the low input crops cultivated were not improved varieties and thus yielded poorly. MACO therefore has the challenge to promote improved varieties of these low input crops, if increased yields are to be realized.

4.4 Improved Targeting of Extension Services

The AIDS epidemic has led to an increase in the numbers of male and female households with chronically ill, households with orphans and vulnerable children, households that experienced a recent death and households headed by young widows, orphans and elderly. These households are severely constrained by labour and other resources, have cashed in most of their resources and thus undermined their ability to cope with external shocks like drought, and consequently have different needs to which agricultural extension staff should respond. To date, agricultural extension services have often bypassed these vulnerable groups. In particular female headed households, young women, elderly, orphans and vulnerable children have not been targeted much in the past by the agricultural sector (NACP, 2003). Given the specific time and resource constraints of these vulnerable groups, appropriate outreach approaches are needed for working with these households. In the context of HIV/AIDS, it is thus important for MACO and other agriculture service providers to make agricultural extension services more effective and responsive to the different HIV/AIDS affected households, both in terms of content and outreach.

Further, gender inequalities put women at greater risk to HIV transmission. Women that are disempowered face more problems in protecting themselves from being infected by their partners and are more exposed to sexual abuse. Generally, men have more access to credit and inputs than women and it is primarily men who receive specialised crop husbandry and marketing information to grow these crops under cooperative arrangements. The limited access to productive resources, credit and information makes that women have fewer livelihood options and are more likely to turn to transactional sex for money, food or favours. Therefore, agricultural extension officers should seek to ensure that gender equality is an integral part of their services. They should support equal access to valuable resources such as land, knowledge, skills, credit, extension, and equal participation in all activities.

Improving outreach to vulnerable households

Agricultural extension staff should improve their outreach to make their services more accessible to households with infected people, female-headed households and elderly. This means listening to men, women, orphans, young widows and elderly who have been affected by HIV/AIDS. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives has adopted a Participatory Extension Approach which encourages dialogue between farmers, facilitators (Extension Officers) and communities in order to identify their problems and to propose best possible solutions. This is done through group meetings which may be segregated by gender/interest groups. Most often there is a tendency to assume that the sub-groupings constitute homogenous categories and little attention is paid to households who do not turn up for meetings. Households with PLWHA thus tend to miss out on extension as HIV/AIDS reduces their time, and the stigma attached to the disease makes it hard for sick-adults and their caregivers to participate in these communal meetings or to be part of an interest group as indicated in Table 4.

Further, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives has recognised the cooperative as the focus for service delivery to the small-scale farmers. However, the participatory planning exercise in Choma district revealed that only 17% of the total HIV/AIDS affected households belong to cooperatives and these are mainly male headed households (Table 4). Time constraints, lack of financial resources, stigma and perhaps inappropriate targeting makes that few households with PLWHA and female headed households are members of a cooperative.

The participatory planning exercise also gave insight into how farmers get their extension advice. The data indicated that 45% of the HIV/AIDS affected households seek information from extension officers, at most 2 times a month; 1% indicated between 3 and 6 times per month; and 44% said they never seek any information at all. When requested to indicate their source of information on nutrition, 42% mentioned the Ministry of Health, 16% named the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, 5% from NGOs; 4% through the radio; and 16% indicated not receiving any information on nutrition at all.

Table 4: Membership to interest groups by household type

Source: Participatory Planning Exercise in Choma district (2004)
* The representation of male headed Households in women clubs is by the spouses

Because sick adults, their caregivers, and widows with young dependents are constrained by time, resources and stigma, agricultural extension services will have to find innovative ways of delivering services to these households by e.g. working through existing home-based care programmes, using rural radio or introducing farmer field and life schools. In farmer field and life schools, men and women farmers learn through field observations, discussions, analysis and sharing about issues like crop management, income generating activities, and how women’s and men’s socio-economic vulnerability lead to risk-taking behaviour. The participatory planning exercise in Choma district looked into preferable outreach modes among the different HIV/AIDS affected households. For female-headed households with PLWHA and/or orphans, translated leaflets are the most preferred mode of receiving extension messages. Male headed households with orphans, who are likely less constrained by time and stigma prefer receiving technical information directly from the extension officer. Male headed households with PLWHA, on the other hand expressed a strong preference for receiving extension information through rural radio.

Radio, though an important tool for mass dissemination, can only be used in specific areas where radio reception is good or when a community radio station has been set up in the district. Though radio has potential in terms of wide coverage, few female headed households indicated this form of outreach most likely because they own or control fewer radios. Field findings in Choma district show that 46% of male headed households with PLWHA and 54% of male headed households with orphans own radios compared to only 15% of female headed households with orphans and 8% of female headed households.

Proving technical information on agriculture through existing home based care was only indicated a preferred way of extension delivery by female headed households with PLWHA. This could be attributed to the fact that these female households bear the burden of nursing chronically ill patients and are also responsible for other household tasks.

Table 5: Most preferred mode of communication by household type

Source: Participatory Planning Exercise in Choma district (2004)

Incorporating HIV/AIDS in extension messages

The participatory planning exercise in Choma district emphasised that agricultural extension staff should better respond to the different needs of households with chronically ill, households with orphans and vulnerable children, households that experienced a recent death and households headed by young widows, orphans and elderly. These households are severely constrained by labour, are risk adverse, and have sold most of their assets and thus undermined their ability to cope with external shocks like drought, and thus conventional agricultural extension messages might not be effective.

The content of agricultural extension messages needs to be adapted to be responsive to the needs of these increasing numbers of vulnerable households and their respective capacity. Extension messages should incorporate conservation agriculture and other labour saving technologies that address the specific labour constraints resulting from the epidemic, should advise on crops that are more suitable to the families affected by HIV/AIDS, and should promote income generating activities that are low-labour demanding, close to the homestead, and that have a quick turn-over. Agricultural extension staff should further take an active role in addressing the underlying gender inequality dimension of the epidemic by supporting equal access to land, credit, agricultural inputs and technology. In addition, agricultural extension officers should try to provide a comprehensive package to HIV/AIDS affected households, including food security, nutrition education and care. This does not mean that agricultural extension workers should discuss sexual behaviour or provide home-based care services - they do not have the mandate nor technical expertise to do so - but rather that the start working closely with rural health centres, community health workers and existing home-based care programmes.

In order for agricultural extension staff to adapt their services to the new conditions on the ground, Camp Extension Officers, Block Extension Officers, District Based Subject Matter Specialists, Community Agricultural Workers and Community Livestock Auxiliaries need capacity building in HIV/AIDS, gender and food security linkages. This would require developing extension material that addresses the needs of affected households, training material for extension staff and providing training of trainers.

4.5 Support to Orphans and Vulnerable Children

One of the effects of HIV/AIDS in Zambia is the increasing number of orphans. There are currently over 600,000 HIV/AIDS orphans living in Zambia and the number is expected to increase to about 974,000 by 2010 and to over four million by the year 2014 (MOH, 1999). In Choma district, statistics show that the number of recognised orphans is estimated at 16,000^[9]. In Zambia, most of the orphans are being fostered by the extended family and approximately 6% end up living in the street and less than 1% live in orphanages. Elderly and female headed households take care of most of the orphans.

The growing number of AIDS orphans is of particular concern for the MACO and other agricultural stakeholders, as many of the young girls and boys will in the near future depend on the agricultural sector for their livelihoods and thus require essential agricultural skills and knowledge. This is particularly challenging in situations where children lost their parents at a young age and local agricultural knowledge may not yet have been passed on. By the time they are orphaned, children may have acquired few appropriate life skills and may be left with little psychosocial support to help them make the necessary adjustment.

MACO has thus an important role to play in supporting orphans and vulnerable children aged 12 to 18 to improve their livelihood prospects in the agricultural sector. To date, youth has not benefited much from agricultural services such as credit, extension and labour-saving technologies and thus requires special support in the transmission of knowledge and technical skills on farming, other livelihoods and nutrition as well as important life skills and HIV/AIDS awareness. This document looks at two possible interventions: Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools and School Gardens.

Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools

The Junior Farmer Field and Life School (JFFLS) uses the farmer field school (FFS) approach. FFS are based on adult education techniques where a group of farmers facilitated by an extension worker are provided with a plot of land on which to experiment with innovative farming practices. In addition to learning technical skills, the FFS provide an excellent vehicle for group mobilisation and income generating activities. Specifically the approach is meant to:

• Empower farmers with the knowledge and skills to make them experts in their own fields.

• Sharpen the farmers’ ability to make critical and informed decisions that render their farming profitable and sustainable.

• Sensitise farmers in new ways of thinking and problem solving.

• Help farmers learn how to organize themselves and their communities.

The Farmer Life Schools (FLS) aspect are based on the same teaching principles of the FFS but here farmers examine the problems that threaten their livelihoods, weigh available options and develop strategies to address the problems. The issues addressed range from poverty, loss of land, alcoholism and the attendance of children at school, to specific health problems such as malaria and HIV/AIDS.

The Junior Farmer Field and Life School (JFFLS) is a combination of the two and specifically targets orphans and vulnerable children between 12 and 18 years. The JFFLS is expected to empower orphans and vulnerable children by improving their knowledge and skills in agriculture, other agro-businesses, and nutrition; whilst the life school component will transmit much-needed socialisation skills and values to these young boys and girls, as well as HIV/AIDS awareness, child protection and psychosocial support. It is expected that the JFFL schools will provide a safe social space for both sexes, where peer support and community care will allow youths to develop their self-esteem and confidence.

FAO, 2004

Local camp extension workers, teachers, and to some extent social workers (i.e. people who know the community) will be primarily responsible for facilitating the implementation of JFFL schools. The communities within the participatory planning exercise also indicated that their readiness to nominate willing and capable progressive male and female farmers to be facilitators and “mentors” in implementing this intervention. These key local stakeholders, including the adolescents, will design the basic curriculum of the JFFLS in a very participatory manner.

Topics that can be treated include:

• Sensitization about JFFLS

• Training in group dynamics

• Training material and curriculum development for e.g.:

  - Small livestock husbandry
  - Crops husbandry (including vegetable gardens, orchards)
  - IGAs (like fish farming, beekeeping, mushroom production)
  - Handiworks (carpentry, carving, knitting, basketry and moulding)
  - Home economics (cookery, food processing and utilization, etc.)
  - HIV/AIDS awareness and psychosocial support
  - Gender awareness

• Counselling on HIV/AIDS and other STDs

School Gardens

Another possible intervention that would transmit important knowledge and skills on agriculture and nutrition to youths are school gardens. School gardens are part of the school curricula under the Production Units and target specifically those children at the upper level, i.e. Grade Five and upwards. The school gardens are used to provide practical hands-on training to the children. They can serve as entry points for discussions on nutrition, HIV/AIDS and gender and thus would require collaboration between MACO, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. Proceeds from the school gardens can be used to finance extra curricula activities and in some cases to meet the financial needs of orphaned and needy children.

Following the participatory planning exercise, schools within the communities have school gardens but they are limited to maize and vegetable cultivation. These school gardens thus need additional support for integrating exotic vegetables, orchards, roots and tubers (especially cassava), and other non-traditional crops (mushrooms). Further, training materials are needed on nutrition and HIV/AIDS linkages and gender that are suitable for children.

Table 1: Integrated Intervention Module for MACO - Choma District (Workshop Output 10 - 12 May, 2004)