Agriculture has been confirmed to be an instrument for development especially for the developing countries. How ever the effect of HIV on agriculture dependent communities can not be neglected especially for the vary poor African commodities. What can we do to Improve the livelihoods and health of these communities through agriculture.
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Make the communities to know the danger of casual sex, HIV and poverty. Let’s eliminate poverty as we campaign for HIV prevention.
Thank you Akpobome. This is a brilliant idea but I am looking for ideas that will help those already living with it and how a good balance diet can improve their health. All from thier gardens or the farm
Marie, this is an important issue. These two ECHO Development Notes articles may be helpful:
Here is my email. janzen200@yahoo.com Let’s cut to the chase on this issue and just talk about income per hour for these impoverished communities. Income per hour is enhanced by identifying the local weeds that are edible which are usually quite nutritious and gathering up large quantities of them, drying them for the dry season and planting the highest income per hour vegetables and value-added that you can do. You take the vegetable #1s to the market and eat the #2 quality vegetables (insect damage, the outer leaves of cabbage which are way more nutritious if well shredded, etc.) and your local weeds you are harvesting as a way to put maximum amount of money into savings. You form savings groups and keep promoting hope and discipleship, Bible studies that tackle the things that are holding people back and displacing them with scripture-based truth infused in their lives using DMM method and using 10 seed principle to have them become stakeholders in identifying the things holding them back. This can be done when the savings group meet. I will help you figure out what is highest income per hour and how to get the kids involved in enjoying income producing agriculture and to develop excellence in management and helping parents determine what is making them the most money per hour. With high income you can afford medicine and other supplements that may help aids victims and afford time and money to help others affected by AIDS as well. It can be a focus of ministry for the discipleship and savings group.
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well said. Farming for AIDS poor communities or for any communities is almost identical.
Using a many pronged approach is always better than a single focus. One of the missing ingredients in your reply is the absolute necessity of NOT using chemicals for weed control as many of the “weeds” ; are high nutrition food that are destroyed in industrial agriculture chemical applications. see “Small Farmers Journal” “Field Weeds for Street Boys”.
Thanks for the nice feedback. I really appreciate it. I don’t understand why we would not use chemicals for weed control. We live in a world of chemicals. We eat chemicals in every bite of food we eat. For some reason there is a bias against chemistry. In chemistry we learn that everything is made up of chemicals and plants are amazing chemical factories. God made them that way. Sometimes we find chemicals that cause little or no damage to humans but severely damage a weed. That is a real find because now we get to use that chemical to control the weeds, and if it is selective then it is even better. Herbicides are here to stay because they give us the ability to produce food at a lower cost that even the poorest of the poor may be able to afford. Just because the media and many of the sources of information around us like to “scare” us does not mean that the majority of the farmers are wrong to use herbicides and bring people less expensive food that is grown more healthy due to less competition with weeds and more organic matter preserved because the farmer controlled weeds with a chemical instead of cultivating which reduces soil organic matter and soil health/fertility. We farmers understand our soil and work with our soil on a daily basis and see the productivity increase or decline based on our practices. Heribide control of weeds allows us the excellence of conservation farming and residue can stay on the surface and soils can over time become more and more healthy.
Hello to Dan,
I’d like to speak more privately about your experience with “chemicals” and the differences between chemicals that harm and those that help. We have a lot of trouble in northern Cameroun with chemicals that harm - especially the herbicide glyphosate. This chemical has done just what it is advertising to do - killed herbs. However these herbs are also healthy plants and are now disappearing from the fields. There are two diabetes treatments that are in short supply because of herbicides. True everything is made up of chemicals but the goal of the -cides is to kill. North Cameroun has a dearth of lizards as well, killed by the sprayed on chemicals from big companies. The big company makes a profit, the farmer is often in the hospital or birthing babies with modern birth defects. Crops grown with good farming but without chemicals have higher yields in our experience in this area. Also, most of the chemicals sprayed on a field do not make the soil more and more healthy over time but the opposite.