Village chickens are resilient, reproduce independently and largely source their own food. Chickens and eggs are nutritious food for growing children.

They can be sold, enabling the family to send children to school, buy other livestock such as goats, and generally improve their standard of life. However, Newcastle disease commonly outbreaks in these communities, meaning the benefits of keeping chickens is unstable.

Newcastle disease has a vaccine and Mrs Alders was able to develop a system of delivery suitable for these developing communities, securing village chicken populations and so providing a more reliable and positive future for the community. Mrs Alders received an Order of Australia for her remarkable work.

Interestingly, Mrs Alders also noted in her travels that much emphasis was put on nutritional content of food in countries where people simply don’t get enough. Here in Australia we have an abundance and yet still suffer widely from malnutrition; malnutrition being the lack of proper nutrition. Almost 25 per cent of Australian women are low in iron, for instance. We should give more thought to not just filling our bellies, but to filling our bellies with nutritious food.