Back in the days when I was a boy growing up in the farm, my grandmother raised backyard chicken whose eggs she gathered and brought to our town’s public market every Saturday.
My older brother, Pat, even had a picture feeding chicken in the backyard of my grandmother which probably explains his passion for chicken raising until today.
After selling her chicken’s eggs, sometimes including the extra cockerels, Lola Azun (Azucena Malasador Magbanua) brought home dried anchovies (dilis)and other household needs, including our favourite magazine, Hiligaynon.
She was poor but somehow the chicken that she raised helped her through.
This is primarily the reason why I believe that if only every farming family in the Philippines with a little space in the backyard could raise at least 10 hens and 2 roosters, we will be able to address rural poverty and also malnutrition.
The sad fact, however, is that today even the farming family buys eggs in the market produced by layers in battery cages and 30-day broilers instead of the more nutritious backyard chicken eggs and free-ranged chicken.
As Agriculture Secretary, I started the SAAD Program (Special Area for Agricultural Development) in the poorest provinces which included the distribution of chicken breeding materials.
I also instructed the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) to conduct orientation and training on backyard chicken raising.
Now with the Mindanao Development Authority, I intend to continue this project to address poverty and malnutrition.
Even Microsoft founder Bill Gates believes that backyard chicken raising could address rural poverty and he has started a chicken dispersal program in Africa.
Here is a report from BBC on the chicken project of Bill Gates:
“Microsoft founder Bill Gates has launched a campaign to help extremely poor families in sub-Saharan Africa by giving them chickens.
“The billionaire and philanthropist says raising and selling the birds can be efficient to tackle extreme poverty.
“He has promised to donate 100,000 chickens, and the project’s page has already been shared thousands of times.
“The UN estimates that 41% of people in sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty.
“Mr Gates said a farmer breeding five hens could earn more than $1,000 (£690) a year. The poverty line is about $700 (£484).
“He added that the goal was to help 30% of the rural families in sub-Saharan Africa raise improved breeds of vaccinated chickens, up from the current 5%.”
I believe our government should focus on this program and provide funds to train our farming families on how to raise backyard chicken.
This could be a better poverty alleviation strategy than giving out financial dole-outs through the Conditional Cash Transfer or 4Ps.
(Photos of Bill Gates introducing his backyard chicken program were downloaded from BBC news website and his Twitter account. Other photos show the free-range upgraded native chicken which I am raising in my farm, the Manok Pinoy.)
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