International News Cultivated Land Disappears in AIDS-Ravaged AfricaSeptember 9, 2005 Thursday in Dublin, researchers told attendees of the British Association of Science meeting that the amount of cultivated land in some African countries has fallen by nearly 70 percent due to HIV/AIDS. Around 80 percent of Africans live off the land but the disease, which infects more than 25 million sub-Saharan Africans, has left fewer and fewer people able to till the soil. "African agriculture depends on labor. You can't produce crops if there is nobody to work on the farms," said Annmarie Kormawa of the System-Wide Initiative for HIV/AIDS and Agriculture (SWIHA). The Benin-based initiative collects information on the impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa by interviewing farmers, researchers, administrators, and health workers. "For the past 20 years since HIV/AIDS was discovered the disease has had a great impact on the African farming community," Kormawa told the meeting. "Agricultural research cannot cure the HIV/AIDS epidemic but it can lessen its impact on survivors." Kormawa said the pandemic is creating delays in planting and weeding, declines in livestock, falling food quantity and quality, and shrinking farms. SWIHA, she said, is looking at new ways to combat the problem, including planting a drought-resistant strain of rice that needs less water to grow and can increase yields by 50 percent. Reuters 09.08.2005; Patricia Reaney ![]() Genocide Survivor Counselors Providing Testing, Treatment for Rwandan Women Infected With HIV Through Rape This article was provided by CDC National Prevention Information Network. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update.
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