Abstract
In rural Africa, indigenous farming and natural resource management systems exemplified by kitchen gardens are being reshaped by the HIV/AIDS epidemic and its negative impacts (illness, stigma and mortality, and economic costs) and positive opportunities (organizational responses to the epidemic). Subtle changes in crops and farm techniques can be traced to these diverse influences of HIV+ infection, illness, mortality, widowhood, foster child care, and AIDS support groups, as well as the organizations, ideas, and flow of funding from outside. These findings draw on original field data: a village census, in-depth interviews with gardeners, and group discussions in a village in Bungoma District (in 2005 and 2007). This part of western Kenya is a typical small-farm zone that has faced a moderate HIV/AIDS epidemic since the 1990s, following decades of demographic, environmental, technological, and institutional changes. Implications of this case study for further research on HIV/AIDS and on micro-level population–environment change suggest that households are useful but imperfect analytical units and are best seen as part of complex social networks, shaping connections to markets. These important “mediating institutions” link AIDS as a demographic and economic force with environmental outcomes in cultivated landscapes.
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The Census: The village level is the lowest official administrative unit in Kenyan society. This comprehensive coverage offers a useful point of comparison with historical data, compatibility with official census data, and a baseline for long term research. A simple household level questionnaire was developed, translated into Bukusu and administered to male or female heads, from February 3 through March 10, 2007 (dry season) by trained, Bukusu-speaking field enumerators. They interviewed a responsible adult for every grouping that ‘eats from the same pot’ within the village catchment area. These numbered 878 households. (There were 29 cases of non-response due to the family being away, incapacitated, or refusing to participate). The 84 multiple wives associated with 34 polygynous relationships each had their own household. A household roster gathered standard data on age, sex, education, religion, work activities, chronic illness, and symptoms for the current members and for “previous members” (who had moved away or died within the past 5 years). The questionnaire asked about land area (owned, rented, fallow), crops (now, last season, next season), tools, techniques, housing, cattle, and other assets owned by the household. The census included a separate questionnaire and group discussions and in-depth interviews to investigate mobile phone ownership and use in the village, a primary topic of the 2007 study, but those details and results are beyond the scope of this article.
HIV/AIDS data include: (1) Project census: proxy indicators of “chronic illness”, prime-age or adult mortality, and orphans or fostered children gathered through the household roster (see Footnote 1); (2) Key Informant Interviews: Lay home based care (HBC) or community health workers (CHW) who identified numbers of known HIV positive status, bed-ridden individuals, people on ART, deaths in the past five years, orphans, discrimination, household dissolution, and wife/widow inheritance following HIV/AIDS disclosure. These were tallied to provide statistics used in combination with census data to generate estimates of HIV/AIDS impacts. (3) In-depth interviews with village elders: HBC workers shed light on the subjective perceptions of stigma and anti-retroviral therapy (ART). (4) Focus group discussions (one each to date) with men and women residents dealing with HIV/AIDS. These measures (in Table 1) likely underestimate the HIV/AIDS situation: First, stigma prevented many people from admitting to their circumstances, seeking the test, and/or care and treatment; secondly, interviews with a male or female head precluded getting information on other individuals who might not have shared their status even with family; thirdly, the roster did not solicit information on infected family members who are not officially members of the household. Finally, many simply do not know their status: for example, only 10% of household heads spontaneously reported having “visited VCT”.
Gardens and Landscape data: The 2005 study documented innovative individual gardens, village infrastructure, and a support group (i.e., community) garden through participatory and group discussions. A particularly innovative and enthusiastic gardener was identified for in-depth interview around her motivations, techniques and problems (one listed in Table 3). The short time frame and structure of the original study entailed a rapid appraisal and did not allow careful study of the larger population nor a strict control group, i.e., non-AIDS affected. The individual gardeners identified were followed up one-on-one in 2007, using a semi-structured questionnaire to inquire about the garden, changes, and perceptions about crops. Interviews were generally conducted in Bukusu and translated into English by a local, specially trained field assistant. Also in 2007, in-depth interviews with eight village elders explored changes in gardens, forest cover, cash and food crops, land, and HIV/AIDS, highlighting the extent of deforestation caused by the uptake of commercial commodities like tobacco. Additional historical context is provided from inspection of colonial era (1920s–1960s) archives at the library of Rhodes House, Oxford University. Relevant documents reviewed included North Kavirondo and Elgon-Nyanza District officer papers, memoranda, and letters on land, health, education, and population. Visual inspection of 1949 aerial photos of the village catchment area revealed the presence of the (current) road (then dirt), large scattered compounds, several patches of cultivated land, widespread pasture, and few large trees. The level of land conversion by that early age is evidently due to cattle grazing and shifting cultivation, later complemented by charcoal production, tobacco-curing, and fuelwood and poles (for building).
ACE-Africa (www.ace-africa.org) is based in Bungoma, operating throughout the District, reaching AIDS-affected with information, training, demonstration gardens, orphan support, and income generation. They have sponsored workshops in agricultural techniques and nutrition and distributed new seeds and techniques (ACE-Africa 2004). This training specifically targeted HIV+ people, widows, and those providing support for HIV+ people and OVCs throughout the district. The 5 day curriculum (shared with the Ministry of Health and other NGOs) encompassed classroom lectures and field practice. Trainees learned how to cultivate indigenous/local crops (millet, sorghum, various leafy greens) and several new plants (soya, eggplant). Messages emphasized the nutritional value of plants, the need to boost the “immune response” with a varied, adequate diet, reducing use of chemicals in planting and of fats in cooking, and saving money through using home-grown rather than purchased inputs and ingredients. Demonstrations at field sites illustrated new techniques, such as green manure, ground cover, and vegetable-based composting (both pit- and pile-type). These techniques were encouraged for individual and community gardens. This is the formal training which, during 2004–5, reached 6 individuals who reside in the study site, and dozens of others throughout the district.
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Acknowledgements
The July 2005 fieldwork was funded by a Research and Writing Grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, part of a larger study (“Crops, Cellphones and T-cells: Technology Change for Livelihood Security in Sub-Saharan Africa”: November 2004–June 2007) aiming to document rural technology-based responses to HIV/AIDS throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The 2007 fieldwork is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation “Science and Society” Program for the project: “Hybrid Technologies in the era of HIV and AIDS: The Hoe and the Mobile phone in Rural Africa” (Sept. 2006–May 2008). Research projects were approved by the Tulane University Institutional Review Board (IRB) and received authorization from the Kenyan Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST). Thanks are due to Collins W. Mubendo for fieldwork on gardens, Peter Khaemba for facilitating group discussions, the project team for conducting the census, Aleya Kassam for comments, ACE-Africa as host agency, RUCEBO for facilitating interviews, and anonymous reviewers of a draft manuscript.
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Murphy, L.L. AIDS and kitchen gardens: insights from a village in Western Kenya. Popul Environ 29, 133–161 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-008-0065-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-008-0065-x