Hatching Big Plans

A farmer's son, Dr Simons spent his childhood in a poultry farm in the Netherlands, and went on to do his doctorate at the Spelderholt Centre for Poultry Research and Information Services, Beekbergen. Education and first-hand experience on the family spread opened his eyes, at a young age, to the significance of technology and management in improving farm productivity.

And, ever since, the poultry expert has channelised his energies towards bringing this knowhow to developing countries like India. He is, however, pragmatic enough to realise: "The problem in India is that even if you educate the farmer about technology and management, he simply would not be able to afford it." He adds that one of the aims of the on-going poultry exhibition is to bring low cost machines to the country.

 

The other problem here, according to Dr Simons, is the "misleading" noises made by the country's rather vocal vegetarian lobby. Without mincing words, he says, "We like animals, and we see to it that our birds have a good life. However, we also believe that people are higher than birds in development, and therefore we have a right to kill them for our own needs."

That should get a lot of cluck-clucks !