This chapter is intended to respond to the need to better understand the implications of the AIDS pandemic for the agricultural sectors in the hardest-hit countries of eastern and southern Africa.

Over the past 15 years, evidence has accumulated of how HIV/AIDS impacts rural people who depend for their food and livelihood on agriculture and the management of natural resources.

The response to HIV/AIDS in Africa has evolved considerably since the first cases were reported on the continent in the early 1980s.

The AIDS epidemic is a global crisis with impacts that will be felt for decades to come. More than 28 million people have died since the first case was reported in 1981.

HIV/AIDS continues to spread throughout the developing world, in transition countries, and among poor and marginalized populations in industrialized countries.

Rollout of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy under the aegis of the WHO’s “3 by 5” initiative, with funding from numerous donors via the Global Fund for TB, HIV/ AIDS, and malaria, the U.S. PEPFAR and U.K.

The AIDS pandemic is a global crisis with impacts that will be felt for decades to come, demanding massive responses at many levels.

In October 2005, the Consortium for the Southern Africa Food Security Emergency (C-SAFE) transitioned to its final year of a regional “developmental relief ” program.

Based on qualitative fieldwork in urban and rural Zambia (see Bond et al.

The more we learn about the interaction between HIV/AIDS and livelihoods, the more complex the picture seems to become. Although we must avoid paralysis in the face of such complexity, we must also be humble about our perceptions.