Poor? - Get some chickens - Bill Gates answer to poverty

[Igel]

19. Why?

It's not "the" solution. But it helps.

One report on the famine in Ethiopia featured this. Typically the villagers would sell off all of their livestock and rely on outside food entirely. Call this "dependency level 1."

Alternatively, outsiders would have to cough up more money to maintain their herds and feed the population, as well. This required more resources; call this "dependency level 2."

Once the herds were gone, it was a difficult task rebuilding them and getting the villagers back up to minimal self-sufficiency. They'd often be somewhat dependent for years after the drought, long after interest and funding dried up.

The villages where chickens were introduced continued to produce some food. The villagers were kept at dependency level 1, although fewer resources could have been supplied to them since they were still producing some. The difference was that they keep some of their livestock, so that once the drought ends they can more easily rebuilt their herds.

This gives the villagers a bit of hope and more dignity. They aren't just charity cases, sitting there waiting for the next shipment of food from the Rich Americans so that the Americans involved can boast about how they helped "save a child, and here's her picture." They're at least helping to feed themselves.

Part of the problem, to be sure, is systemic. The carrying capacity of the land is dictated not by good years but by bad crop years. However, western funding has made sure that the population in some areas is higher than the carrying capacity during even good crop years. Famine, harshly and rudely, served to knock down the population and put a damper on fertility during lean years (since below a certain calorie level women stop being fertile). The populations are fairly young now so the population will continue to increase whatever happens to education levels and fertility in the next 20 years. That will necessitate increased out-migration even as countries and their "indigenous" populations feel that they're being culturally and economically swamped and require ever greater levels of international aid during lean years in the future.

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