About 15,000 baby chickens were purchased by Nicaragua from a Costa Rican poultry producer this week as part of a program called Zero Hunger launched by the Nicaraguan government to combat malnutrition, according to Orlando Núñez, director of the program.

These chickens, most of which are female, are the first of 90,000 birds Nicaragua hopes to buy from its southern neighbor this year.

Alfonso Valerio, president of Nicaragua's Association of Small and Medium Poultry Producers, said the chicks arrived Tuesday in incubators shipped from the Costa Rican company Cría Aves.

Through the Zero Hunger program, poor rural families in the Caribbean and northern sections of Nicaragua, the poorest areas of the country, will receive five female chickens and one male so that they can collect eggs and breed the birds for meat.

The association plans to raise the baby birds at a special facility for a few weeks before distributing them, in hopes of preventing the spread of diseases.

The program seeks to benefit 5,000 families this year, and the overall goal set by President Daniel Ortega is for 75,000 families to benefit during the next five years.

Núñez said the program also involves distributing livestock, pigs, rice, and beans to poor families as well as offering them loans to purchase land and farming equipment.

-ACAN-EFE