Which came first, the chicken or the pay cheques?

Sunday, June 3, 2012

According to Radio Free Europe, doctors and teachers in the Vobkent district of Uzbekistan were paid in April with chickens.

Take the chicken home, stick it in the pot. Not a bad deal, right? Not so simple. There is a bit of a food time lag here. The chickens were actually chicks from Serbia, deemed to be superior to their Uzbek counterparts, and supposedly ready to start laying eggs in a few months. Each public sector worker got 10 chicks after the federal government urged regional governments in February to boost local production of poultry, eggs, meat and vegetables.

While the government said the program was voluntary, some teachers reported that they had no choice. It's problematic for workers who live in apartment blocks. The chicks were valued at US$3 each.

There's a plan in the works to do something similar with cows from the Ukraine. BF