Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates recently offered survival advice to the worlds most impoverished people and said that he would send them chickens.
Via the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the worlds richest man said he would send 100,000 chickens to twenty developing countries, among them Bolivia, as a donation through the Heifer International Organization with the aim of “reducing poverty” and “improving nutrition”
However, the Bolivian government has said ‘no thanks’, telling Mr Gates to keep his vaccinated chickens because they don’t need them.
The Huffington Post reports:
The Bolivian government rejected on Wednesday a donation of hens offered by U.S. billionaire Bill Gates, as officials said the tech magnate needs to study up on the Andean nation’s thriving poultry sector.
“How can he think we are living 500 years ago, in the middle of the jungle not knowing how to produce?” Bolivian Development Minister Cesar Cocarico told journalists. “Respectfully, he should stop talking about Bolivia.”
The Microsoft founder and philanthropist recently said he would donate 100,000 hens to countries with high poverty levels, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa but including Bolivia.
Bolivia produces 197 million chickens annually and has the capacity to export 36 million, the local poultry producing association said.
Niamh Harris