AIDS and kitchen gardens: insights from a village in Western Kenya

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.