There's no home for you here.

There’s no home for you here. (Photo: Tom Coppen/CC BY 2.0)

Earlier this month, the Gates Foundation and Heifer International announced a new antipoverty initiative. The campaign, which they’re calling “Coop Dreams,” would donate 100,000 chickens to a variety of developing nations, including Bolivia.

There’s just one problem—Bolivia doesn’t want them. “I find it rude,” said Cesar Cocarico, Bolivia’s Rural Development Minister, according to Agence France-Presse. “We don’t depend on chickens. We’ve advanced. Our people have dignity and they know how to work.”

Gates explained the initiative in a blog post titled ’Why I Would Raise Chickens.’ “If I were in their shoes, that’s what I would do—I would raise chickens,” he wrote, pointing out that they’re a good starter investment. “Our foundation is betting on chickens,” he summed up.

As the Verge points out, Bolivia already produces 197 million chickens every year. Programs like Coop Dreams “always see us as miserable Third World countries,” Cocarico summed up in turn. “That point of view deserves a general protest by the people.”

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