KAMPALA, Uganda – It is impossible to imagine any Canadian farm organization greeting visitors to its office with a blunt message about responsible sexual behaviour.
But at the head office of the Uganda National Farmers’ Federation (UNFF), a huge sign on the veranda proclaims the ABCs of farmer sex – abstain, be faithful but if you must indulge, use a condom.
The spread of HIV/AIDS is one of the most serious issues facing farmers in Uganda and throughout Africa.
The government estimates that more than two million Ugandans, or six percent of the population, is HIV/AIDS positive. As many as a million children have been orphaned by AIDS.
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With 80 percent of the population living in the countryside, mainly dependent on agriculture and often travelling in search of farm work, it is a catastrophe that hits food producers disproportionately.
Rwakakamba Morrison, manager of policy, research and advocacy for the UNFF, argues passionately that the government and international aid donors trying to muster up resources to battle the spread of the virus are missing the boat by not making the farm federation one of their key allies and program delivery agents.
“HIV/AIDS is central to farm policy in this country because it kills and disables poor people and most of those are farmers,” he said.
“It often is able-bodied farmers who fall victim to AIDS and it means they are too sick to work or they die and their wife can’t run the farm and look after the kids and production falls. It is a huge problem.”
The national farmer lobby has developed a communication strategy for its members but so far lacks the money to spread the word effectively.
“It is a bigger problem in the country because communication is harder,” Morrison said.
“In the city, people are bombarded with messages and there is more knowledge. In the country, that message is just not getting out.”
Peter Atekyereza, head of the faculty of social sciences at Kampala’s Makerere University, isn’t as convinced about the existence of a rural-urban divide on the AIDS issue.
Atekyereza, who is also national co-ordinator of the food insecurity research network Renewal Uganda, said the disease is a big problem in rural areas but it also is rampant in the slums around the capital.
Still, a research paper produced this month by Renewal researchers reported that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is particularly hard on rural women because when their husbands die, the right for them to continue to own and work the land is not crystal clear in law or custom. Relatives, neighbours or “land grabbers” often intervene, adding to the poverty and distress of the surviving family.
“This is a huge problem for our country and beyond in Africa,” Atekyereza said.
Morrison adamantly believes farm organizations could be part of the solution if they were given the resources to get the word out about the ABCs of farmer sexual practices.
It is an issue the Canadian Federation of Agriculture will never have to confront.
