Bill Gates the chicken man!

As you plan your forthcoming trip to the province or vacation on the Nov. 1 break, be informed and be prepared wherever you decide to stay. In recent trips out of Metro Manila, I was shocked to discover on two occasions that two hotels we stayed in had no first aid kit and could not even produce a medical plaster otherwise known as a band aid! A friend had cut her finger on a glass table top and we found ourselves rigging toilet paper, napkins and what have you because it was late at night and all the stores were closed. The hotels were new and relatively up market although situated in the province. They both had WiFi but no band aid. They did have a fire extinguisher.

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In Bacolod City, I was shocked to see a huge rat run across the floor where a hotel had an indoor pool and where they served food and drinks all day. I know that rats like criminals are opportunistic, but when customers pay thousands of pesos to stay or dine in your facility, you should at least invest in a dozen rat traps etc to make sure they don’t make an unscheduled appearance and welcome your guests.

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Just a short note to the NAIA 2 management. Every time I go through Terminal 2 I now leave my car at the parking lot and proceed to the terminal through Bay 6 ground level. People with luggage as well as PWDs always encounter UV Express Vans parked right in front of the pedestrian lane. It’s not the fault of drivers because they are parking on painted slots. The problem is whoever painted the slots did not realize that they need to keep the pedestrian lane accessible and free from obstruction. Then as you go up the escalator from Bay 6, someone had blocked off access to the passenger entry with flower boxes, forcing passengers to once again turn around to the curb side. The escalator was put in place for convenience and direct access to the door, why reroute them to curbside? Sorry but both problems defy design and that makes no sense at all.

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Can you imagine Bill Gates as a “Chicken Man”?

In order to do justice to the thought, Bill Gates would certainly have to double his current size and weight, add on at least 30 years of age overnight and then come up with an outfit or maybe Super Hero costume to top what Col. Sanders wore that became the iconic image for Kentucky Fried. But because Gates has no real or actual experience in the business, chances are he might be doomed to fail.

Yes Bill Gates has gotten into the “chicken business” but not in the way most people would imagine. He has actually invested money to help develop a program aimed at producing chickens and distributing them as start-up material for poor families in Africa to be able to raise poultry as a food source for themselves. It’s not an original idea but something that used to be done worldwide until urbanization made it practically impossible to raise chickens in the suburbs and cities of the world. In addition many commercial poultry growers, supermarkets and dedicated fast-food chains made it easier to buy chickens than to raise your own. There is however a growing trend among people going back to nature and “organic” especially among families with special children or persons requiring chemical-free food.

In case you’re wondering why I’m writing about “poultry,” consider this: it’s a quick and easy solution against malnutrition, it can be an added livelihood and source of income. If you are a taxpayer, part of your hard earned money goes to funding animal dispersal programs that often cost too much, takes too long to expand or multiply, produces luckluster results and often benefits businesses selling the livestock. The logic behind bringing back poultry to poor or provincial families is because it is a program that has one of the lowest investment costs because live chickens cost  much cheaper than a cow, a pig or a goat. They are also low maintenance and in the right environment they are comparatively self-supporting, they roost on trees or high places which make it harder for predators or thieves to steal them. More importantly, the nutritional value of chicken eggs makes them an ideal naturally packaged food same as with bananas.

In the Philippines, the practice has lost much of its following because of urbanization, and inbreeding that results in smaller, weaker and disease prone chickens. Many families are not taught or trained to introduce new material from time to time to improve genetics and prevent inbreeding. As a result most of our native chickens have shrunk in size and weight. Another problem that came as a result of the “devolution of government” is that local governments have cut back on hiring agricultural farm extension workers. Because of this, there are hardly any people going out to communities to teach people about poultry and livestock management, most especially about vaccination and inoculation.

I recently visited Puerto Galera in Mindoro and saw the devastation that was caused by the Avian Pest or NewCastle disease. Practically everywhere I went, people would tell me that they lost nearly all their native chickens because of the “peste” several months back. The sad part was that the native chickens were an additional food source as well as additional income. Those who raised 45-day broilers also lost their stock as well as a lot of money because they had the impression that the 45-day window was so short that they did not need to vaccinate and that vaccination might affect their products. The multi-million peso loses nationwide could have been avoided if we had people on the ground to teach people like they used to. Ironically most of the game fowl farms and backyard sabungeros survived unscathed because they all implement a vaccination program. In the end, the rich and well-informed who raise chickens as a hobby, for sports, business and gambling get to keep their feathered fowls while the people who rely on “native chickens” and broilers for food and marginal income get wiped out!

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