Bill Gates gives big nod to chicken farming

Chicken are enjoying global limelight after Bill Gates, speaking in front of chickens pecking and clucking in a New York City skyscraper requested well-wishers to join him in donating 100,000 chicks to poor nations in an effort to end extreme poverty. As expected, that goal was achieved in a matter of days. The chicks will go to rural areas in two dozen developing countries from Burkina Faso to Bolivia…

Chicken are enjoying global limelight. Few weeks ago American business magnate Bill Gates, speaking in front of chickens pecking and clucking in a New York City skyscraper requested well-wishers to join him in donating 100,000 chicks to poor nations to end extreme poverty. That goal was achieved in record time. The chicks will go to rural areas in two dozen developing countries from Burkina Faso to Bolivia.

To give this issue context, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) says poultry represent about 30 per cent of agriculture’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 2015, Kenya’s GDP was US$70 billion. Of this, agriculture contributed 30 per cent. If we extrapolate FAO figures, the contribution by the poultry industry is a whooping US$6.3 billion.