Rural Development Project for the 21st Century

[Guest guest]

Dear all,

 

I am presently working on a document that I will send

to Chayadevi as an attachment upon finishing it. It is

very developmentesque, as that is my training. As with

any thing that will be put as a consensual document, I

only present this as my piece, it is definately not

set in stone and I'm sure after much debate it will

look nothing like below. I have not yet finished it,

but below is the first part.

 

Mark

 

 

 

The ISKCON Ministry of Cow Protection and Rural

Affairs

Rural Development Project for the 21st Century

 

Pre-amble

 

There is a general perception and feeling in many

parts of the world today amongst a

growing number of the world’s citizens that the path

of development that is being

undertaken is unsustainable. An unsustainable world

will, as the word describes, not

be sustained for long before inherent factors in the

development process will bring

forth situations that prevent the long-term sustenance

of living beings upon the

resource-base of the planet. Such a situation can only

lead to environmental, social

and economic chaos in varied forms. Measures are being

undertaken throughout the

whole of civic society to address the inballances

inherent in unsustainable develoment

and to ultimately bring the varied development

processes throughout the world into a

sustainable form. It is with the latter points in mind

that this document is presented as

a further aid to bring forth a sustainable manner both

materially and spiritually.

 

Message of intent.

 

We, the ISKCON Ministry of Cow Protection and Rural

Affairs, comprising of

Balahbadra dasa Adikhari and wife Chayadevi dasi

Adikhari and an assemblage of

devotees and non-devotees on the ISCOWP Cow

Conference(*1), hereto refered to as

the undersigned, would like to present to 1) the

ISKCON GBC, 2) ISKCON temple

and farming authorities, 3) any other interested

parties, our collective desire to further

the goals of cow protection and rural development

throughout the world. In the light

of current events, instigated by the September 11th

terrorist tradgedy, the undersigned

have seen it fit to put aside conflictive and

high-minded differences and concentrate

for now solely on the need to solve the basic human

needs of sustenance, shelter,

maintenance of family and defence of ones interests in

the most sustainable form

possible, with reference to all of the world’s

teachings, and taken in particular from

the teachings of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta

Prabhupada. We, the

undersigned, state that for their to be any chance of

a sustainable world culture based

on spiritual education there needs to be first a

system of land and resource use that

can provide in a sustainable manner the aforementioned

primary needs. It is with this

statement that we, the undersigned, present the ISKCON

Ministry of Cow Protection

and Rural Affairs’s Rural Development Project for the

21st Century.

 

 

 

 

*1 - The names of all the undersigned.

 

 

 

Project Vision:

 

To maintain, develop and reinvigorate in a sustainable

manner Krsna Conscious and

other sectarian and secular rural communities for the

purpose of realising a

sustainable rural life based on the land, domesticated

farm animals and crops in

accordance with the fulfillment of the world’s

teachings and Srila Prabhupada's

mission.

 

Project Mission Statement 1

 

To have in place by the end of year 2001 a Sustainable

Development Audit

Framework (SDAF) to be sent to every existing and new

Krsna Conscious, and other

intereted parties, rural farm community throughout the

world. To have by the end of

year 2002 a database of all said farm communities with

a first and developing audit.

Project Mission Statement 2

To have in place by the early beginnings of year 2002

a Sustainable Development

Action Plan (SDAP) using the information from the SDAF

for every existing and new

Krsna Conscious, and other intereted parties, rural

farm community throughout the

world. To have by the end of year 2002 a database of

all said farm communities with

a first and developing report on the SDAP.

 

Project Action Plan 1

 

To realise the Project Vision and Mission Statement 1

via an environmental,

sociological and economic audit of all Krsna

Conscious, and other intereted parties,

rural farm communities throughout the world. To

develop a Sustainable Development

Audit Framework (SDAF) to be circulated to all

interested farm communities for

general discussion. At the end of the discussion

period for the agreed upon SDAF to

be recirculated for data entry completion.

A SDAF would need basic information in relation to

three catagories - environmental,

social and economic.

Environmental information would need to address

area-specific environmental

factors - latitude, longitude, yearly and seasonal

rainfall, biome type, soil type, the

areas ecology, agro-ecological constraints, local

farming practices, etc; plus

location-specific farm community information - farm

size, types and quantity of

livestock, present cropping regimes, types of woodland

and agroforestry

techniques, and buildings.

 

Sociological information would need to address

area-specific sociological factors

- population density and distribution, percentage

rural/urban, general and specific

land use skills, ethnicicity and religiousity, percent

of vegetarians, etc; plus

location-specific factors - quantity of people in farm

community, familiar and

spatial arrangements, skills of community members,

organisational structure, etc.

 

Economical information would need to address

area-specific economical factors -

stage of development (MEDC, NIDC, LEDC), average

income in PPP and income

disparities, state of infrastructure, technological

adoption, etc; plus

location-specific factors - value of farm, livestock,

crops, woodland and buildings,

inputs, flows and transfers, and outputs into, within

and out of farm community.

 

 

 

 

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