Despite better harvests across southern Africa, more than three million people would remain short of food because of chronic vulnerability caused by grinding poverty and the world's highest rates of HIV/AIDS, the UN World Food Program warned here on Wednesday.

"It is great news that the region will have a reprieve from the major food deficits seen over the last few years," said WFP Executive Director James Morris, who is also the UN secretary general's special envoy.

Morris said: "As long as HIV/AIDS remains at such epic proportions throughout southern Africa, a large number of people will face severe hardship unless international assistance is provided. Good harvests do not necessarily mean people have enough to eat."

The harvest report follows a one-day conference by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) on Tuesday in Johannesburg, where representatives from 10 countries announced preliminary agricultural production levels for the 2006-2007 consumption year.

Malawi recorded its best harvest in nearly five years because of better rainfall and more widespread availability of seeds and fertilizers. However, many people in southern Africa will need humanitarian assistance for the year ahead because they were unable to grow enough food to feed themselves until the next harvest, or they are unable to buy food on the market.

Even though harvests in some countries have reached bumper levels, there are concerns that surpluses may be bought by traders in East Africa, which is facing food shortages, rather than being sold at affordable prices in southern Africa.

In addition, because southern Africa has nine of the 10 highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world, many people are just too ill to work land or earn an income. The small amount of cash in poor HIV/AIDS-affected families is usually spent on medicines to treat their loved ones and on funerals.

More than six million people are estimated to be infected with the virus in Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The number of orphans and child-headed households is also increasingly placing a heavy burden on family structures, communities, and the state. Nearly half of all orphans due to HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, live in these seven countries.

"Food and good nutrition are crucial in battling against HIV/ AIDS but it is very tough to convince the international community of the complexity and depth of the pandemic in this region, especially when people's misery is masked by green fields and good harvests," Morris said.

WFP needs 85.5 million U.S. dollars to provide food assistance to some three million people in southern Africa through to December. By then, the number of families needing help could increase dramatically at the start of the 'lean season' when they have exhausted their food stock and await harvesting of the main crop in April/May.

Source: Xinhua