By Mercedes Sayagues.

In the last decade, Uganda has boosted agricultural production, underpinning the phenomenal 6% annual growth of the economy. Peace and stability, privatisation, a revamped marketing system, new cash crops and active farming associations are behind the success.

Agriculture accounts for 70% of Uganda's GDP, 95% of exports and 40% of government revenue. 80% of the work force is employed in agriculture; most are smallholders.

For this reason researchers are looking closely at the impact of AIDS on smallholder agriculture. "Our agricultural boom does not translate into better food security for rural households," says Stella Neema, of the Institute of Social Research at Makerere University in Kampala. Uganda can ill afford worse nutrition for its children.

According to 1995 statistics, 38% of children are stunted; 15% are severely stunted. More than a quarter of children under four are under weight for their age. For smallholders, the AIDS pandemic brings loss of labour as adults die; loss of assets which are sold to pay for medicines and burial, and loss of working days spent caring for the sick and attending funerals.

Gary Howe, director for Africa at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), says AIDS has created "an acute shortage of labour and dependence of rural households on single women and the elderly." A study found that, in the last decade, in three communities with different farming systems, 45% of households were cultivating smaller areas. Seventy per cent grew a smaller range of crops. More than half complained of lack of hands among the family and lack of cash to hire casual workers.

Due to labour and capital shortages, families withdraw into subsistence food production. As a result, overall production of cash crops has dropped. Large, once thriving, plantations are being increasingly neglected.

In northern Uganda, sorghum and millet are overgrown for lack of hands. Herd care skills are being lost among pastoralists in eastern Uganda because adults die before they can teach the young. Diseases transmitted from animals to humans are on the rise.

There are fears that AIDS may also affect the future of coffee production, the backbone of the Ugandan economy, grown mostly by smallholders. About half of coffee plants are more than 50 years old and labour-intensive replanting is needed. But coffee-growing areas along Lake Victoria are among the worst hit by AIDS. "Boosting smallholder productivity through better crop management would help," says Mr Howe.

Also needed are plant varieties with higher yields and better drought, weed and pest resistance, but requiring less labour. One example is a new strain of cassava resistant to mould disease introduced in Uganda by the Institute for Tropical Agriculture and IFAD.

Uganda is lucky to have plentiful rain and fertile land. The staple diet includes the hardy cassava, sweet potatoes, millet and green bananas. But should there be a drought or weather pattern change, AIDS-stricken families would quickly go from hunger to starvation, caught in the spiralling cycle of food insecurity and poverty.