Contextualising the emergence and impacts of the AIDS epidemic on rural livelihoods and household food security in Masaka, Uganda

Agricultural extension programs have been implemented in Nigeria by governmental and nongovernmental agencies from the colonial era to the present day as a means toward bolstering economic development, rural livelihoods, food security, and trade relations. Nevertheless, funding and staffing levels in agricultural extension remain low compared to Nigeria’s farming population. With a brief review of past initiatives, current challenges, and potential opportunities, this article gives recommendations in three focus areas for maximizing the effectiveness of Nigerian agricultural extension: (1) prioritize human education over input provisioning in the definition of agricultural extension’s primary purpose; (2) aim for household food security, not solely business expansion, to ensure the inclusion of the most vulnerable farmers; and (3) foster multidirectional communication among academic researchers, extension agents, and farmers. Overall, this article argues that taking a farmer-centric educational approach to agricultural extension, rather than a farm-centric business approach, will have the most profound and sustained impact on Nigerian agricultural development. Keywords: Nigeria; agricultural extension; rural development; fertilizer subsidies; farmer education; household food security; agribusiness; research-farmer linkage

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Social and Cultural Relations in Economic Action: The Embeddedness of Food Security in Rural Malawi Amidst the AIDS Epidemic

Environment and Planning A Economy and Space ◽

10.1068/a31190 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 345-360 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Mike Mathambo Mtika

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Food Supply ◽

Burden Of Illness ◽

Rural Households ◽

Household Food Security ◽

Cultural Relations ◽

Social Actors ◽

Goods And Services ◽

Aids Epidemic ◽

Household Food

In its prescription of how food security among rural households can be attained and how problems such as AIDS can be addressed, the neoclassical utiliarian view envisions individual house-holds making atomistic decisions in the use of their resources, goods, and services (entitlements). In exploring the effect of illness and death on household food security in rural Malawi amidst the AIDS epidemic, I find that the embeddedness view explains more convincingly how rural households secure their food supply and deal with illness and death. This view suggests that individual households' use of their entitlements indeed contributes to household food security and the fight against illness and death, but that such use is shaped by the entitlement system that embodies collective beliefs, rules, expectations, and obligations. Social and cultural relations between households, anchored in the entitlement system, enable households to share their entitlements through reciprocity and redistribution, thereby contributing to collective food security and diffusing the burden of illness and death across households. Rural Malawians are thus not isolated actors envisioned by the utilitarian view but social actors who constantly engage in negotiations with each other, sharing their entitlements, and thus collectively securing their food supply and diffusing burdens. Food security then gets compromised when burdens reach a threshold that fractures social and cultural ties thus disabling households from sharing entitlements. AIDS is a threat to food security in rural Malawi because of its potential to make the spread of illness and death burdens so extensive that households would be unable to share their entitlements.

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