Bill Gates ‘Coop Dreams’ antithesis to economic principles

KARACHI: Bill Gates’ poverty alleviation chicken plan failed to grab a much appreciation anywhere because it lacked pragmatism and commercial viability. Rather, American economists dubbed the plan as an antithesis to basic economic principles.

The economists said livestock has never played any role in alleviating poverty around the world. Families in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Ghana, Uganda and other countries domesticate and breed hundreds of chickens, but they could not able to increase their annual income to $1,000 per household. Those who were donated chickens, livestock and given training managed to raise $82 in annual income as opposed to the project’s expenditure of $1,700 a year on managing coops.

Bolivian government refused to accept Bill Gates chicken donations, rubbishing the offer as ‘not a solution’ to end poverty in the improvised nation. Bolivia itself produces 200 million chickens with annual inventory surplus of 40 million. Melinda Gates, wife of Bill Gates, has, however, termed chicken as an automated teller machine for the underprivileged people.

In 2016, Gates launched the plan to help extremely poor families in sub-Saharan Africa by giving them 100,000 chickens. The objective was to help 30 percent of the rural families in sub-Saharan Africa breed chickens.

Bill Gates was confident that a farmer breeding five hens could earn more than $1,000 a year as against the poverty line of around $700. Critic, however, threw up a few questions. For example, from where a farmer would arrange feed for growing population of chickens. Or, would the growing demand of chicken feeds entail replacing of other crops? Obviously, the chicken surplus would mean reduction in poultry prices.

The US, European Union and Brazil were already accused of selling chickens at throwaway prices much below than the local farmers in African markets. Though Bill Gates chicken donation was in itself a noble gesture it is far from practicality in terms of a promise to end poverty.

Chris Blattman, a prominent development economist at the University of Chicago, penned an open letter critical of Bill Gates ‘coop dreams’. Blattman said Gates policy aimed at to ramp up supply of chickens, which he added would adversely affect the poultry price equilibrium. “The income gains to poor women are thus unlikely to be anywhere near $1000 per year.”

The economist believed that a cash handout is one the best means to alleviate poverty than training or similar solutions to build human capital. A couple of years back, nine scholars had initiated similar six poverty alleviation programs in six countries. They donated chickens and livestock to poor in addition to impart breeding training. Three years later, it was found that each family that participated in the program earned $80 a year, whereas the program expenditure per family was $1,700 and most of the spending was in training. Likewise, in Uganda poor women were doled out $150 as well as given business training to empower them to take effective entrepreneurial role. Two years later, the program ended up spending $843 on each family, while a household income amounted to paltry $202 a year.

Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world. He once said he would have been breeding this avian hadn’t he have the affluence and even if he were to earn two dollars a day. The American business magnate, who pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors after leaving Microsoft, estimated a chicken costs approximately five dollars in most of the developing economies and so he could buy 12 chickens in a month on his daily income of two dollars. After a few months, he would be able to raise dozens of chickens, which would become a minting machine to at least pull him above the poverty line and to make him middle-income individual, Gates wrote in its official blog Gatesnotes

Gates launched the chicken plan in collaboration with Heifer International, a charity focused on donating livestock to poor families around the world. They initially chose 12 countries from Africa, central America, and Asia to donate chickens.

Gates Foundation said poultry farmers buy livestock from the bootstrap and livestock contributes 30 to 40 percent of their household income.

A report said the coop dreams could not succeed in empowering women. It is a political act. Bill Gates conceded that he was never into poultry breeding, but he said he was learning. Chicken doesn’t have much vaccination requirement and therefore the vaccine cost is very low.

Brazil adopted an entirely different model over the three decades and now it has become the world’s second biggest chicken producer and the top poultry meat exporter. Numbers of Brazilian families are associated with the occupation. Local farmers have contracts with big companies that ensure supply of chicks, feed, vaccination, technical assistance and guarantees.

Odebrecht, the giant Brazilian construction company, planned $82 million installation to go from field to fork, producing maize and soy for feed, having a hatchery, slaughterhouse and processing plant, and marketing. The project was to meet one-fourth needs of chicken in Mozambique. But, the plan didn’t come to fruition as the company’s owner was jailed for 19 years on corruption charges.

The United Nations estimated that 41 percent population in sub-Saharan Africa lives below the poverty line. In Mozambique where most of the local farmers domesticate chickens only two percent of farmers have annual income of $1,000. Chickens coming from Brazil and south Africa have low prices in the local markets of Mozambique. So, for Mozambicans Gates formula won’t make any difference in improving their competitiveness. The situation is more or less similar in Ghana and other countries.