Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
to Asia. The smallest change has occurred in SSA, where historical annual growth of
3% is projected to decline to 2.2% per year through the next decade, most of which
can be attributed to the AIDS pandemic. According to a U.N. report, HIV/AIDS
prevalence levels in SSA countries have risen to catastrophic levels. According to
the report:
Previously, demographers routinely assumed gradually rising life expectancy and
improved health conditions in all countries, an assumption generally backed by the
actual trends. AIDS has changed all that and, for the first time in the history of modern
population projections, rising mortality levels caused by an intractable disease has
become a key element of projections
(United Nations, 2007).
In Botswana, for example, life expectancy for men in 2005 was 33.7 years, while
in the absence of AIDS it would have been about 40 years higher. In countries such as
South Africa, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe, life expectancy for men and women declined
by about 25 years.
Despite the HIV/AIDS pandemic, SSA's population nearly tripled to an estimated
650 million between 1960 and 2000; in 2008, the region's population was roughly
760 million. The prolonged rapid population growth combined with inadequate
investment in productive capacity left the region behind all other developing regions
in terms of income growth and other social indicators such as education and health.
The problem is that low education levels, scarce employment opportunities, and high
population growth are part of a vicious cycle that is difficult to break. Factors such as
agrarian structure, poverty, stagnant rural incomes, and religious and cultural beliefs
are believed to be important determinants of a family's demand for children. In SSA
countries, where production systems tend to be labor intensive rather than capital
intensive, there is a strong incentive for large families because the ability to increase
cultivated area is positively correlated with family size. The importance of family
size is highlighted by the fact that most of the food production activities are handled
by women and children. In this system, a man can significantly increase his income
by having several wives and many children. He also depends on a large family for
old age security since he cannot mortgage or sell land to which he has only user
rights. Until the time that an additional child is more expensive than the income and
labor that it contributes, households will have few incentives to restrict family size.
Therefore, to reduce population growth, policies to increase agricultural productiv-
ity and investments in market infrastructure to facilitate the function of markets are
essential. If the adoption of new agricultural technologies is not supported, labor will
remain the main input in production, and large families will be a key to survival. The
outcome of this trend, as we have seen in low-income, food-deficit countries, will
be slow or no growth in per capita food supplies, stagnant or deteriorating caloric
intake, and declining nutritional status.
tRend In globAl food AvAIlAbIlIty
During the last century, growth in global food production surpassed population
growth, leading to an overall improvement in per capita food consumption at the
