Guest guest Posted September 29, 2001 Report Share Posted September 29, 2001 Dear Prabhus, In light of Pancaratna Prabhu's letter and Syamasundara Prabhu's letter also Marks', I propose that we move forward with the WHY which is important to have a unified understanding of what we are doing on the conference. This Ministry feels that the most attainable process is to approach this proposal for ISKCON. Once the proposal is accepted, then we can adjust it for a wider audience. ISKCON has collectively large land holdings and is protecting most likely the largest number of cows on an international level than any other organization. With their approval of the plan it gives validity to the plan. If the proposal is too wide scoped it very likely will affect its acceptance by the GBC. Let's finer tune Mark's WHY and then progress. I changed it only slightly. Following are some statements from Mark on formulating the WHY WHY > In light of the need to reinvigorate ISKCON rural farm > communities to fulfil the wishes of our spiritual > master His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Minsistry of Cow Protection > and Agriculture, is preswenting a Rural Development > Plan for the 21st Century. Your servant, Chayadevi > > WHY - The wording that a WHY statement would contain > may have many variations: > > - In light of the fact that.... > - In the absence of any.... > - Seeing as... > - Because the... > > So, the above collection of sentence starters contain > the start to answering WHY. > > The WHY wording thus needs to be agreed on. > > Then, there is the subject matter that WHY is > addressing - the WHAT. What has led us to this, and > what is it we want to do in light of this? > > So the above logic brings us to the next points on the > question star, 5WH- > HOW & WHO. > > We have looked at HOW and there is a certain feeling > coming forth that it should be in the form of a > development project with a defined goal through a > vision, mission statements and action plans. > > > So, I agree that the WHO here is ISKCON, no more. > > Beyond WHO is WHERE and WHEN. The latter two seem to > be geared to the Mayapur meeting next year. > > > If the above is taken on board then the fine wording > of WHY needs to start the whole project > > > With such clarification, it would be appropriate if > the more senior devotees, who will be after all the > major signatories and orators behind this venture, to > clarify the WHY and WHAT. This would then lead HOW > etc., to bring forth the vision on the strengths > of a clearly defined Vision and the rationale behind > said Vision. > > Yours in service, > > Mark. > > > > Listen to your Mail messages from any phone. > http://phone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 29, 2001 Report Share Posted September 29, 2001 Dear Pancaratna Prabhu, PAMHO. AGTSP. > 1) First is to establish a permanent ISKCON Goraksha Trust, with current and > future cows as the legal benficiaries of the trust. This trust would have > legal control over sufficient current ISKCON property to guarantee their > livelihood. The land would remain the property of ISKCON but would be > encumbered in this way so that it could not be sold without the permission > of the trustees. The trustees would be bound to act in the best interests of > the named beneficiaries - the cows. > Thank you so much for your letter that really gives us a direction. The concept of the cow trust has been in the Standards and one that no farm has implemented, to our knowledge, except New Vrndavana. So to see this as part of the plan is wonderful and also pushing the beginning of establishing long term protection on ISKCON or ISKCON related projects. > However, this model is not aimed at jumping straight to self-reliance and > living exclusively from the land. It is more of an intermediate stage. > > I believe this CSA approach may be the most practical way to start > commercially viable protected cow farming. It avoids the hassles of trying > to break into the supermarket distribution system and all the regulations, > etc. since the products are not actually "sold" but given as dividends to > the investors. > > And, it has the added benefit of supporting local community economies. Yes, we feel you are correct. What we are striving for is a practical plan to get devotees on the land and it seems that the CSA is a good plan to work with in doing this. Thank you very much for bringing this to the attention of this conference. Please keep us informed how the plan develops there. The members of this conference will proceed in developing a proposal, but your input is most valuable. On another point, we have never received a cow report from Alachua. We heard that Alachua is now seperate from ISKCON? As you know we do not think along party lines and it would be really great to have communication with the cowherds there. This Ministry's vision is to unite as many cow protection centers as possible to create a strong voice for the cows within ISKCON and without. Like the labor union concept. Also Srila Prabhupada has said that one stick alone will brake but many sticks together can not be broken. A cow report form will be sent to you which can be filled out and sent back to us by e-mail. Thank you again, Your servant, Balabhadra das & Chayadevi - "PRD" <PRD (AT) pamho (DOT) net> "Cow (Protection and related issues)" <Cow (AT) pamho (DOT) net> Cc: "K Solomon - Kesihanta" <k.solomon (AT) worldnet (DOT) att.net> Sunday, September 30, 2001 12:29 PM Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) > Dandavad. Prabhupada kijaya! > > I have been absent from this conference for a few months and have just > caught up with the backlog of texts. I am encouraged by your determination > to prepare a project document outlining practical steps towards rejuvenating > ISKCON associated rural community development. > > Last July I relocated my family to Alachua, FL , although I still work with > Mayapur Project from a distance and will be returning there soon for 5-6 > weeks. If Lord CHaitanya permits I will be about 3-4 months a year in > Mayapur and the rest of the time in Alachua. > > I have joined a small group of devotees here who are trying to take the cow > protection program here to a new level. Our plan is two fold: > > 1) First is to establish a permanent ISKCON Goraksha Trust, with current and > future cows as the legal benficiaries of the trust. This trust would have > legal control over sufficient current ISKCON property to guarantee their > livelihood. The land would remain the property of ISKCON but would be > encumbered in this way so that it could not be sold without the permission > of the trustees. The trustees would be bound to act in the best interests of > the named beneficiaries - the cows. > > This trust would also raise donations for expanding land holdings, etc. for > the benefit of the cows. > > IN the future this trust could also control other land that might be owned > by devotee farmers who want to produce "certified protected cow products" > (Marks's idea). > > 2) Secondly we want to develop a community supported agriculture model for > farming both on ISKCON land and nearby devotee owned land with ISKCON. This > CSA model has been successful around the country, though I do not know of > any such projects that use ox-power. > > The basic model is for a group of people to invest in the production of a > farmer. The farmer is essentially selling shares in his future production. > The average CSA has about 100 members contributing about $500 each. The > members then receive the produce of the farm every week. Studies have shown > that these farms provide fresh, organic produce to the members at lower-than > market prices. > > In our case, we will develop a business model for ox-powered cultivation and > protected-cow milk production. We will then invite devotees, vegetarians > from Gainesville, etc. to invest as shareholders. > > The model will include reasonable income for the farmers who do the actual > work. > > IN order for this to work, the cows and bulls that are engaged in this > program would have to be protected by the trust, which would control > sufficient land for guaranteeing their protection. > > One way to look at this is that we are asking ISKCON (which represents the > brahmanical section) to give authority over its land to the Trust > (representing ksatriyas) who would then engage farmers (vaisyas) to make it > productive. > > There are several devotees here who have expressed interest in farming for > their livelihood and there is a lot of land both in ISKCON and in private > devotee holdings that could be used. > > However, this model is not aimed at jumping straight to self-reliance and > living exclusively from the land. It is more of an intermediate stage. > > I believe this CSA approach may be the most practical way to start > commercially viable protected cow farming. It avoids the hassles of trying > to break into the supermarket distribution system and all the regulations, > etc. since the products are not actually "sold" but given as dividends to > the investors. > > And, it has the added benefit of supporting local community economies. > > I encourage you to look up "community supported agriculture" on the web. One > good site is http://www.umass.edu/umext/csa. They have a list of printed > materials which I will be ordering from and I can share with you. > > Although I may not have time to post to this conference frequently, I would > like your feedback on our directions here. > > Your servant, > Pancaratna das Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 30, 2001 Report Share Posted September 30, 2001 Dear all, Pacaratna’s recent post does fit very much the overall model I have been putting forward for some time. I agree entirely with his assessment of the situation and the practical steps he is taken to realise a pragmatic vision. Obviously it is being refined and looked into in both the devotee sense and the more secular realm. Syam’s recent post on sorting out one’s own back door also raises an issue that needs to be sorted in the WHO bracket, and this is part of what I would like to address below. WHY - The wording that a WHY statement would contain may have many variations: - In light of the fact that.... - In the absence of any.... - Seeing as... - Because the... So, the above collection of sentence starters contain the start to answering WHY. The WHY wording thus needs to be agreed on. Then, there is the subject matter that WHY is addressing - the WHAT. What has led us to this, and what is it we want to do in light of this? This then needs to be addressed quite clearly. So far, from recent posts the conference is coming to the opinion that we are not addressing Varnasrama, that we are here solely to address Góraksya vrajaman (excuse my ignorance here in Sanskrit) - Cow protection, ox-powered cultivation and trade. Using other terms we could say the WHAT we are addressing is - Cow protection as defined by Prabhupada; or A farming system, both dairy and ox-powered cultivation, with lifetime protected farm animals. Hopefully it can be agreed that the two are similar in definition, but maybe not 100% in detail. Another issue of WHAT is how far does it extend- is it exclusive, only looking at ISKCON and its own back door, or is it inclusive, extending into the secular realm to bring forth a farming system that all could utilise? The former does seem to be the way devotees on the conference work, whilst the latter would be more to my tastes. A point here though is that an exclusive plan if replicable can be brought out from its exclusive domain and made inclusive by those who would have it that way. So the above logic brings us to the next points on the question star, 5WH- HOW & WHO. We have looked at HOW and there is a certain feeling coming forth that it should be in the form of a development project with a defined goal through a vision, mission statements and action plans. If the above be the case then the next question to ask is to WHOM is this to be addressed? Here both Syam’s back-yard point and Ananda Maya’s points of SMART development need to be heeded. Will the project be A- attainable, and R - relevant? So if the project is basically exclusive for ISKCON, as it seems it will be, then it has to go with the flow of ISKCONers, be relevant to them and attainable to them. To reiterate, for me the more that this exclusive plan has within it replicability to take from it and bring it out in another context then its exclusivity is no longer exclusive - just a stepping stone to secular inclusion that someone like myself or another could take and form VEDA & Protection Farms, or whatever. So, I agree that the WHO here is ISKCON, no more. But it would be very good to do it in a way that could prove relevant for others to use. Beyond WHO is WHERE and WHEN. The latter two seem to be geared to the Mayapur meeting next year. If the above is taken on board then the fine wording of WHY needs to start the whole project. Examples: In light of the need to reinvigorate ISKCON rural farm communities to fulfil the wishes of our spiritual master His Divine Grace.............it has been seen fit that we, The ISKCON Minsistry of Cow Protection and Rural Affairs, bring forth a Rural Development Project for the 21st Century. Or Due to the urgent need to present to the world a viable alternative to the present unsustainable World land use practices it has been deemed fit that...... There are a multitude of ways to write this. The points I have put above is to show how asking the 5WH we can refine the purpose of what etc., we are trying to do, and to word our intentions to suitably reflect that. With such clarification, it would be appropriate if the more senior devotees, who will be after all the major signatories and orators behind this venture, to clarify the WHY and WHAT. This would then lead HOW etc., to bring forth the vision on the strengths of a clearly defined Vision and the rationale behind said Vision. Yours in service, Mark. Listen to your Mail messages from any phone. http://phone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 2, 2001 Report Share Posted October 2, 2001 How does this sound? In light of the need to reinvigorate ISKCON rural farm communities to fulfil the wishes of our spiritual master His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Minsistry of Cow Protection and Agriculture, is preswenting a Rural Development Plan for the 21st Century to establish principles of land use that encourages participation in cow based agriculture and horticulture and that gives security of tenure to the participants. ys syam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 2, 2001 Report Share Posted October 2, 2001 > > However, this model is not aimed at jumping straight to self-reliance and > > living exclusively from the land. It is more of an intermediate stage. Very realistic. Also, a consciousness should be developed that it is not just the actual devotees getting dirt under their fingernails but all devotees who are involved, either doing business or working jobs to generate surplus to make capital contributions to the trusts, or by subscribing to the CSA and paying optimal prices. Could even have a tiered subscription to the CSA dependent on income or some criterion. Like everyone driving a vehicle the gets less than 28 mpg pays more than someone who drives an economy car or uses public transit. Whatever. Anyone with a car less than 3 model years old pays a surcharge, or who lives in a house with more than 1500 sq feet. (simply ideas, not actual benchmarks meant to be defended) Please note I delibretely didn't say lower tier pricing for sannyasis, who as a rule have more discretionery income than many householders. Unless of course they are actually following the theory that they are only in one place long enough for a cow to be milked (and I grant them that with long term milking, milking may only be once a day :-) > > > > I believe this CSA approach may be the most practical way to start > > commercially viable protected cow farming. It avoids the hassles of trying > > to break into the supermarket distribution system and all the regulations, > > etc. since the products are not actually "sold" but given as dividends to > > the investors. And places like Alachua and London are ideal to start because you already have a large potential base of motivated consumers so expansion can be predicated on a waiting market. Of course this will work best with an integrated farm production where veggies, fruits, and flowers (fertilized with cow manure and ideally ox power assisted production) at more market competitive prices are also part of the CSA package, softening the impact of the higher priced milk. As an initial jump off, I would suggest a fund raiser for the local Deities so they could be an initial r. Collect capital gifts to an amount where the income generated from the capital would pay for sufficient shares in the CSA to provide for the Deities. If a share was say $600 per annum and conservatively 6% was available as a return, then $10,000 would be needed to be collected. If it were found that the Deities needed 4 shares to provide for Them, then $40,000 would be needed. Maybe if a pujari an cook was hired for the Deities, another $10,000 each would be collected to provide a share for their personal maintenance, so collect a total $60,000 for the Deities which would provide a solid basis for maintaining Them and a solid core for the devotee farmer to build on. If someone had a new car and big house, maybe they could qualify for lower tier of pricing if instead of paying cash for their share, they would put $10,000 into a Trust that held land for the CSA farmer to share crop on. This could generate the intial funding for the Trust. Anyway , just tripping, no energy to defend any of this. Either you get it or you don't. In case anyone is deeply interested in the concept of capital gifts, here again is an address to a site that has lots of ideas to use. http://phillips.exeter.edu/gift/index.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 2, 2001 Report Share Posted October 2, 2001 Dandavad. Prabhupada kijaya! > On another point, we have never received a cow report from Alachua. We > heard that Alachua is now seperate from ISKCON? This is NOT true. ISKCON of Alachua/New Raman Reti is affiliated to ISKCON and is governed by ISKCON law, under the overseeing capacity of Sesa prabhu, the GBC Zonal SEcretary assigned to ISKCON here. ISKCON of Alachua is governed by a BOard of DIrectors who are elected by the community and who in turn appoint a Temple President (currently Nanda Dasi prabhu). I heard that there were some proposals in the past by the BOard to separate from ISKCON GBC supervision, but these seem to have been dropped. >As you know we do not > think along party lines and it would be really great to have communication > with the cowherds there. This Ministry's vision is to unite as many cow > protection centers as possible to create a strong voice for the cows > within ISKCON and without. Like the labor union concept. Also Srila > Prabhupada has said that one stick alone will brake but many sticks > together can not be broken. A cow report form will be sent to you which > can be filled out and sent back to us by e-mail. The lady looking after the cows is Devaki prabhu, wife of Kesihanta prabhu. I will talk to them about doing the cow report ASAP. Your servant, Pancaratna das Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 2, 2001 Report Share Posted October 2, 2001 In light of the need to reinvigorate ISKCON rural farm communities to fulfil the wishes of our spiritual master His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Minsistry of Cow Protection and Agriculture, is preswenting a Rural Development Plan for the 21st Century to establish principles of land use that encourages participation in cow based agriculture and horticulture and that gives security of tenure to the participants. Material nature is endlessly mutable. In light of the need (isn't that a little negative?) to reinvigorate ISKCON rural farm (as opposed to urban farms?) communities to fulfil the wishes(some not all of his wishe many of which are already fulfilled) of our spiritual master(not everyone is his doksa disciple anymore, and no need to get into the murky lands of relationship of diksa and siksa gurus) His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Minsistry of Cow Protection and Agriculture, is preswenting (surely a very spiritual thing to do but maybe we should stick to a simple presentation :-) a Rural Development Plan for the 21st Century (those centuries clock around pretty quickly) to establish principles of land use that encourages participation in cow based agriculture and horticulture and that gives security of tenure isn't that redundant?) to the participants. In light of the opportunity to reinvigorate ISKCON farm communities in accordance with the wishes of His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Minsistry of Cow Protection and Agriculture, is presenting a Rural Development Plan to establish principles of community based on the land and the cows that encourages participation in agriculture and horticulture and gives security to the participants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 3, 2001 Report Share Posted October 3, 2001 Dear Madhava Gosh prabhu, PAMHO. AGTSP. Thank you very much for finer tuning the WHY. My only change would be to not use the word community since it brings up the concept of varnasrama ( I agree with Mark on this point) which we are not claiming to have a full plan for. I think the words "land use" keep it simple and feasable. When I put in the words I reverted back to the original wording. If that could be finer tuned please go ahead. > > In light of the opportunity to reinvigorate ISKCON farm communities in > accordance with > the wishes of His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami > Prabhupada, The ISKCON Ministry of Cow Protection > and Agriculture, is presenting a Rural Development Plan to establish > principles of land use which encourage participation in cow based agriculture and horticulture and gives security of tenure to the participants. Dear Mark, PAMHO. AGTSP. I think Madhava Gosh's changes are good. We need to keep it simple, easy to understand and a fast read. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 3, 2001 Report Share Posted October 3, 2001 - "Pancaratna ACBSP" Tuesday, October 02, 2001 5:05 PM Re: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) > Dandavad. Prabhupada kijaya! > > > On another point, we have never received a cow report from Alachua. We > > heard that Alachua is now seperate from ISKCON? > > This is NOT true. ISKCON of Alachua/New Raman Reti is affiliated to ISKCON > and is governed by ISKCON law, under the overseeing capacity of Sesa prabhu, > the GBC Zonal SEcretary assigned to ISKCON here. Thank you very much for clarifying this. Sesa Prabhu has been very helpful inthe past, it was he who presented the Standards tothe GBC. At one attempt he did give the report to Nanda dasi but we never received anything. > > ISKCON of Alachua is governed by a BOard of DIrectors who are elected by the > community and who in turn appoint a Temple President (currently Nanda Dasi > prabhu). I heard that there were some proposals in the past by the BOard to > separate from ISKCON GBC supervision, but these seem to have been dropped. > This was what probably was reported to us as fact. Thank youagain for clarifying. > >As you know we do not > > think along party lines and it would be really great to have communication > > with the cowherds there. This Ministry's vision is to unite as many cow > > protection centers as possible to create a strong voice for the cows > > within ISKCON and without. Like the labor union concept. Also Srila > > Prabhupada has said that one stick alone will brake but many sticks > > together can not be broken. A cow report form will be sent to you which > > can be filled out and sent back to us by e-mail. > > The lady looking after the cows is Devaki prabhu, wife of Kesihanta prabhu. > I will talk to them about doing the cow report ASAP. Thank you so much. Often that is waht it takes , connection with the cowherds. The report form is attached. If there is any problem in reading it please let us know. By the way have you discussed in your plan how the farmers become secured on the land? Your servant, Chayadevi> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 3, 2001 Report Share Posted October 3, 2001 Personlly I like this better worded modification. ys syam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 3, 2001 Report Share Posted October 3, 2001 I agree with Mark on two points therefore I have changed my version and have started if differently also: Comments please. To reinvigorate ISKCON farm communities in accordance with the wishes of His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Ministry of Cow Protection and Agriculture presents a Rural Development Plan to establish principles of land use which encourage participation in cow based agriculture and gives security of tenure to the participants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 3, 2001 Report Share Posted October 3, 2001 I do think that sustainable is important to add and lifetime protection. Also practices is different than principles and needs to be mentioned. I am not sure lifestyle is the word we want but I agree that we do want to ensure some protection other than rental. My revision is below and it probably needs some grammatical corrections. Comments? > > My revision would be> > To reinvigorate ISKCON farm communities in accordance > with the wishes of His Divine Grace.A.C. > Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Ministry of > Cow Protection and Agriculture presents a Rural > Development Plan to establish sustainable principles > and practices of land use which encourage > participation in lifetime-protected cow-based > agriculture and gives lifestyle and tenure security to the > participants. > > So the Vision would be: > > The Vision is to see ISKCON farms managed according to > established sustainable principles and practices of > land use which encourage participation in > lifetime-protected cow-based agriculture and gives > lifestyle and tenure security to the participants. > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 3, 2001 Report Share Posted October 3, 2001 Dear all, >From Madhava Gosh Prabhu (is that MMM?) and approved by Chayadvi: In light of the opportunity to reinvigorate ISKCON farm communities in accordance with the wishes of His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Ministry of Cow Protection and Agriculture is presenting a Rural Development Plan to establish principles of land use which encourage participation in cow-based agriculture and horticulture and gives security of tenure to the participants. Mark: Chayadevi and all, whilst it is often easy to quickly decide on one form in order to move on, it is the case with projects like this for this type of wording to do the rounds quite a few times so that all the bugs get taken out. Lawyers are extremely excessive on this matter for words are their business. Of course I am prepared to accept yourself, Chavadevi, as the chair in all things here, yet not to be pedantic, but as someone who teaches in secondary schools both as a Geography and English Language Teacher, I would again raise the following issues about the above words and structures of which I have doubt: 1) Opportunity - the opportunity has always and will always be about, on its own it makes sense in a vague context - the opportunity of what, from what? It needs an origin, a reason to say “now the opportunity has arisen”. I would put desire - especially as it is the desire to please the spiritual matter that brings forth fruit. 2) "..is presenting" - it is always better in a presentation to keep the tense passive not active. So is presenting would be "presented is" or "presented within (or below)". But this has its own wordage problems. '..is presenting..' is present continuous, if not passive it could be in simple present - presents. 3) Plan - though I myself (and mine) used the term ‘Plan’, in retrospect I still think ‘Project’ better fits the bill. A plan is too blue-print, too top-down impositional. A project is more an on-going concern, a momentum with a fixed-to-sliding agenda, something that is being constructed from the bottom up. 4) “..that encourages participation in agriculture and horticulture..” - horticulture is the science of gardens, here grains are not included, neither does it mention dairy except as included in agriculture. So the point here is why specify horticulture? The terms agriculture and farming are wider and more embracing, horticulture is a specific type of agriculture - that pertaining to gardens. A direct change is given below which addresses all the points that I have raised above: In light of the desire to reinvigorate ISKCON farm communities in accordance with the wishes of His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Ministry of Cow Protection and Agriculture presents a Rural Development Project to establish principles of land use which encourage participation in cow-based agriculture and gives security of tenure to the participants. Another version, taken from my prior posting: In light of the desire to reinvigorate ISKCON farm communities in accordance with the wishes of His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, presented below for the consideration of the devotee community is a Rural Development Project intended to establish sustainable farming principles and practices and encourage participation in lifetime-protected cow-based agriculture giving lifestlyle security to the participants. The above one includes the passive tense taking away the subject (The Ministry) that also adds to it "for the consideration of the devotee community". I think this important as it stresses it is not a top-down imposition, but is inclusive (of the devotees) and participatory - it lends wait to the feeling that we are all included, even if it is in the first reading. I think this to be very important. I also added "lifetime-protected" as no mention has been made to this, and it is extremely important - even if the wording can be changed. Personally, I would like to see this do the rounds, but I do accept authority. Mark NEW from GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities./ps/info1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 3, 2001 Report Share Posted October 3, 2001 A few further revisions below, though I think now we are cornering in on the exact nature. My position is below, it is almost a reiteration of my last position, so I'm sure with a little more wider participation some agreement can be got at. Chayadevi further refined to this: To reinvigorate ISKCON farm communities in accordance with the wishes of His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Ministry of Cow Protection and Agriculture presents a Rural Development Plan to establish principles of land use which encourage participation in cow-based agriculture and gives security of tenure to the participants. Which may give the Vision of this: The Vision is to see ISKCON farms managed according to established principles of land use which encourage participation in cow-based agriculture and gives security of tenure to the participants. Points: Is it just principles we want to establish or both principles and practices? There is no mention of lifetime protection, whilst this may be obvious as it is ISKCON I wonder if it needs mentioning. There is no use of the word sustainable, which I think may be appropriate before the word 'principles'. You have cow based agriculture, it should be cow-based agriculture with the hyphen, as being based on the cow is the adjective to the noun agriculture. Is it just security of tenure or a greater security in terms of eat, sleep, mate, defend - income, land tenure, basic needs in a developed world, etc? I used the term lifestyle security, though that may not fully encapsulate the term. So, my further revision would be this: To reinvigorate ISKCON farm communities in accordance with the wishes of His Divine Grace.A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The ISKCON Ministry of Cow Protection and Agriculture presents a Rural Development Plan to establish sustainable principles and practices of land use which encourage participation in lifetime-protected cow-based agriculture and gives lifestyle security to the participants. Though looking at it it is pretty much what Chayadevi changed. Obviously, this is just my piece. So the Vision would be: The Vision is to see ISKCON farms managed according to established sustainable principles and practices of land use which encourage participation in lifetime-protected cow-based agriculture and gives lifestyle security to the participants. If one compares that to my Vision for Protection Farms then we can see another approach. Protection Farms Vision - a worldwide farming system with the productive and profitable use of lifetime-protected farm animals. Just things to consider, no more, no less. Mark NEW from GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities./ps/info1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 8, 2001 Report Share Posted October 8, 2001 > By the way have you discussed in your plan how the farmers become secured > on the land? Not in detail. But the basic principle I am thinking of would be to secure the cows on the land and the farmer would have to surrender to having this encumbrance on his/her land in order to qualify as a protected cow farmer. For the farmers who are engaged on ISKCON land, there would be sufficient support of these farmers to gradually provide them title to some additional land acquired for their homestead and added production. Your servant, Pancaratna das Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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