Protection Farms - True Economy for Cow Protection

[Guest guest]

HKDD, I had given up trying to work with ISKCON, but

recently the Vegetarian Society, UK rejected my

proposal to change their charitable constitution to

include the lifetime protection of farm animals. They

do not want to take it on as it is too big and radical

for them. The same goes with Compassion in World

Farming, PETA, FARM, etc. All the time these groups

reject my proposals, usually as they are run by

vegans, but if not as it is too radical. All have said

that VEDA - The Vegetarian Environmental Association

is a good idea, and that Protection Farms is a good

name for the market.

 

Therefore, I have had to return to ISKCON.

 

So, what is the point?

 

The point is if there is a possibility for an

economically succesful version of cow protection it

should be persued. I have been around ISKCON for 14

years, and the one thing that convinces me there is

room for efficiency with farming is to see how

ineficient ISKCON workers can be, the opportunities

that are missed, and the general lack of business

accumen.

 

what would be

> more likely to

> convince us would be solid figures on an Excel

> spread sheet -- or some

> similar, straightforward financial analysis.

 

That is exactly what I am asking for. I would love to

present it to you, but last time I attempted it I

realised it was beyond my scope and I needed an

agricultural economist to give it a thorough going

over.

 

I am not relying on milk sales as the only fund

raiser. It just happens to be the easiest to map out

and it is a large part of the cow compartment, along

with stool for composts, tourist attraction, leather

and meat (on natural death).

 

Most of us who have been around for ten years or so

> and seen ISKCON

> dairy projects start up with great optimism and

> enthusiasm and end with

> tragedy and disillusionment.

 

My analysis of this is that it was entirely due to

poor management and lack of planning.

 

"He who lives by selling milk

> will have to sink

> in hell.""

 

When I was at the Manor and this appeared in the BTGH,

Shyam, Vipramuki Swami and others could not agree with

it and said it was taken out of context.

This is one reason I do not call myself an ISKCONer,

just a pseudo devotee, as such mental contortions can

blow one of the focus. My focus is the lifetime

protection of farm animals, if I have to, and can do,

sell milk for $20 a litre I will to achieve my goals.

Therefore, I think the above quote is totally

misleading humdrum.

 

-- And going right up to the present,

> we can't figure out

> how it could possibly be a good idea.

> More than a Power Point presentation, >

> For me, I saw the math in 1986, when I realized

> that, for one calf, a

> cow might produce $2000 worth of milk, but to

> maintain the resulting

> bull calf for life in the current economic system

> would cost $6000 --

> leaving a $4000 deficit per animal.

>

Charge 3 times the price for your milk and you draw

even, charge 4 make a profit. What was the price at

that time?

 

I suggest we do the figures again (but in litres as

well) as part of a compartmentalised business model. I

have been trying to get funding for this but failed. I

think the ISKCON approach needs to move into

profit-orientated before someone else does, to run

self-sufficient models and profit-orientated ones.

Believe me I am out to get this done. If and when I

can it would be a shame for ISKCON to continue

protesting against it whilst bashing its head against

the wall of purity at all costs.

 

With a cow living 20 years, with 3 calves born

annually, at the 20th year there would be 60 cows - 30

cows + 30 oxen. From the 30 cows 12 would be milking

in various stages of a 4-year lactation giving an

average of 8 litres per day or 100 litres per day per

herd. There would be 15 retired animals (living off an

insurance scheme) and 6 calves. With a premium price

for milk products and normalish ones for veg, there is

the possibility if not propability of a working model

and a profitable business. If not profitable forget it

for now, maybe in the future people will pay $3 for a

litre of Protection Farms milk. People pay it for a

litre of beer!

 

What would it cost to maintain 30 cows (or 60 if oxen

included) a day - $90?, $150. The figure needs to be

worked out. From the Manor's rough estimates, and

others, I worked it out that a cow costs $2 a day to

maintain, including land rent or financing,

maintenance and conservation feed. Add the cost of a

milkman, loans, insurance, business permits, etc.

Figure ????

 

So, Protection Farms milk, or Happy Cow milk is a

niche premium market. In your farm there are probably

500 "devotees" who would want to buy your milk. Work

out the cost add a 20/30/40% premium and sell it to

them from the farm gate. There, costs covered, work

done, animals protected, profit made for future needs

and present debt payement.

 

What is so ####### difficult about that??? Excuse my

language but I can't see what is wrong with the tree I

am barking up.

 

Of course, I have compartmentalised the system. The

cows should not pay for the oxen. But the oxen are

much more difficult to cost. This is an enormous work.

If we lead by costing the cows first at least half of

the equation is done.

 

What if the price people will pay will pay for both

sexes is enough? Why not go ahead and experiment with

oxen, even subsidies, until the necessary skills have

been worked out? At the Manor the oxen are adopted,

not so much the cows, as Shyam is running the above

system of extended lactations, but the oxen hardly

work.

I do not go along with milk as the only purpose, but

on a commercial model it would be what the consumer

would be most interested in. I fully agree the oxen

need engagement otherwise they are a utilitarian

nightmare.

 

Would it be so wrong to run a business, now say in its

20th year, with a herd of 120 cows. 24 to 40 could be

milking (maybe I have sold some off to other

Protection Farms) giving 200-300 litres of milk a day.

Much of that could make all sorts of added-value

products, with 1 litre yielding a price of $2,

compared with normal dairies at $0.30.

In this farm there are 60 to 80 oxen. Presently

trained and working are 20 to 30, with all new oxen

trained up with the now fully trained people. The

produce is full off specialist goods, and with

demand-side management my customers buy veg from me at

the normal market price.

 

Here, the cows and oxen should have an environmental,

social and economic system to maintain there

continuity.

 

It requires planning, costing, financing, marketing

and working it. It is a viable business. Why don't we

do it?

Why not approach this as any other business, except

for its speciality to us and God?

 

If you would like to see my discussion document VEDA &

Protection Farms, and the power point document, I can

attach it. I am new to the cow conference so I do not

know if it will pass through, otherwise I can cut and

paste.

 

 

HKDD, sorry I am attacking you somewhat, but I totally

disagree with your stance and fell that your adhesion

to self-suficient cow protection is blinkering you to

a new thing. There is an almost 10% vegetarian

population in the UK, and with mad cows that is likely

to go up and up. From my article in The Vegetarian

Magazine it is clear that on presentation of an

alternative farming system with lifetime-protected

farm animals, which most are ignorant of, the

vegetarian consumer wants this system. Is ISKCON just

going to sit by whilst some psuedo devotee or even,

God-forbid, a karmi goes ahead and steels the baby.

Please waken up to the fact that this is a future

billion-dollar market.

 

Yours idealistically and pragmaticsally,

 

Mark Chatburn.

 

 

Get personalized email addresses from Mail - only $35

a year! http://personal.mail./

[Guest guest]

HKDD, I had given up trying to work with ISKCON, but

recently the Vegetarian Society, UK rejected my

proposal to change their charitable constitution to

include the lifetime protection of farm animals. They

do not want to take it on as it is too big and radical

for them. The same goes with Compassion in World

Farming, PETA, FARM, etc. All the time these groups

reject my proposals, usually as they are run by

vegans, but if not as it is too radical. All have said

that VEDA - The Vegetarian Environmental Association

is a good idea, and that Protection Farms is a good

name for the market.

 

Therefore, I have had to return to ISKCON.

 

So, what is the point?

 

The point is if there is a possibility for an

economically succesful version of cow protection it

should be persued. I have been around ISKCON for 14

years, and the one thing that convinces me there is

room for efficiency with farming is to see how

ineficient ISKCON workers can be, the opportunities

that are missed, and the general lack of business

accumen.

 

Hare Krishna dasi:

> what would be more likely to convince us would be solid figures on an

Excel spread sheet -- or some similar, straightforward financial analysis.

 

Mark:

That is exactly what I am asking for. I would love to

present it to you, but last time I attempted it I

realised it was beyond my scope and I needed an

agricultural economist to give it a thorough going

over.

 

I am not relying on milk sales as the only fund

raiser. It just happens to be the easiest to map out

and it is a large part of the cow compartment, along

with stool for composts, tourist attraction, leather

and meat (on natural death).

 

Hare Krishna dasi:

> Most of us who have been around for ten years or so and seen ISKCON

dairy projects start up with great optimism and enthusiasm and end with

tragedy and disillusionment.

 

Mark:

My analysis of this is that it was entirely due to

poor management and lack of planning.

 

"He who lives by selling milk

> will have to sink

> in hell.""

 

When I was at the Manor and this appeared in the BTGH,

Shyam, Vipramukya Swami and others could not agree with

it and said it was taken out of context.

This is one reason I do not call myself an ISKCONer,

just a pseudo devotee, as such mental contortions can

blow one of the focus. My focus is the lifetime

protection of farm animals, if I have to, and can do,

sell milk for $20 a litre I will to achieve my goals.

Therefore, I think the above quote is totally

misleading humdrum.

 

--Hare Krishna dasi:

> And going right up to the present, we can't figure out how it could

possibly be a good idea. More than a Power Point presentation, > For me, I

saw the math in 1986, when I realized that, for one calf, a cow might

produce $2000 worth of milk, but to maintain the resulting bull calf for

life in the current economic system would cost $6000 -- leaving a $4000

deficit per animal.

 

Mark:

Charge 3 times the price for your milk and you draw

even, charge 4 make a profit. What was the price at

that time?

 

I suggest we do the figures again (but in litres as

well) as part of a compartmentalised business model. I

have been trying to get funding for this but failed. I

think the ISKCON approach needs to move into

profit-orientated before someone else does, to run

self-sufficient models and profit-orientated ones.

Believe me I am out to get this done. If and when I

can it would be a shame for ISKCON to continue

protesting against it whilst bashing its head against

the wall of purity at all costs.

 

Comment:

Purity is the force. For arguments sake I will put aside the scriptural

injunctions.

 

Mark:

With a cow living 20 years, with 3 calves born

annually,

 

Comment:

Twenty years yes this I can accept, but three calves per annum!

Since coming to New Talavan (September 1976, 24 years), I have seen 284

calves born, no twins or any other multiple births let alone one cow

producing three calves per year for twenty years.

 

Mark:

at the 20th year there would be 60 cows - 30

cows + 30 oxen.

 

Comment:

I do not even like to breed a cow before she is at least four, usually do

not breed the same cow every year and do not breed a cow after she has

reached her eighteenth year. Usually by this time, old age has taken its

toll and it would be to stressful on the animal. This leaves seven calves

during a cow's lifetime. With a large herd of cows (at last count - January

28 - New Talavan has fifty-seven), we can select who is to be bred, giving

as many as possible a chance to render service while maintaining a low birth

population per year. Most cows have during their lifetime three or four

calves.

 

Mark:

>From the 30 cows 12 would be milking

in various stages of a 4-year lactation

 

Comment:

Here we need to understand a cow's lactation cycle and in particular, the

growth of milk salts as the lactation proceeds. In the dairy industry, they

have concluded that to obtain the optimum level of production the cow must

be bred 45 days after calving resulting in an optimum calving interval of

one year. This results in rapid drop in production beginning on the 25 week

(5th month of pregnancy) as the fetus increases its consumption of milk. At

this time the percentage of salt content in milk, increases due to the

decrease in milk yield fluid volume.

 

Now we are not interested in pushing the cow to get big yield, if however

you are engaged in making a profit or even just breaking then you will be

forced to follow the above schedule, it is the most economically feasible

method.

 

At the time the salt content increases so does the hormone content, this

results in a loss in sweetness of the milk. This, unfortunately some

individuals' can easily detect. One devotee came to me and asked why I was

milking stale cows, he could detect the increase in the salt content,

needless to say he also asked if there was anyone due to freshen.

 

Devotees very reluctantly will pay $5 a gallon, when the price hits $3 they

start buying the karmic milk.

 

 

Mark:

giving an average of 8 litres per day or 100 litres per day per

herd. There would be 15 retired animals (living off an

insurance scheme) and 6 calves. With a premium price

for milk products and normalish ones for veg, there is

the possibility if not propability of a working model

and a profitable business. If not profitable forget it

for now, maybe in the future people will pay $3 for a

litre of Protection Farms milk. People pay it for a

litre of beer!

 

Comment:

In New Talavan a number of years, back there were twenty-six families, in

the course of one week, they could only consume eighteen gallons

(approximately fifty-four litres) but I was producing thirty per day. Bad

scene. To maintain the herd, $231 every week, that would mean a charge of

$12.82 a gallon ($4.27/litre).

 

To get them to take eighteen gallon it had to be delivered to their

doorstep, which meant engaging another devotee to do that. Sell to the

non-devotees; a few will accept our standards of boiling three times before

use. However, most want pasteurized and if the health department becomes

aware then there are all kinds of regulations to be met. Another set of

expenses.

 

We have the advantage over other ISKCON farms in that grazing is available

year round, if there is not a yearlong drought. Therefore, for others the

expense will be even higher, storage of large volumes of feed with

accompanying buildings to house the animals and their feed. For New Talavan

storage of feed pales next to the amounts contended with by our northern

friends.

 

Mark:

What would it cost to maintain 30 cows (or 60 if oxen

included) a day - $90?, $150. The figure needs to be

worked out. From the Manor's rough estimates, and

others, I worked it out that a cow costs $2 a day to

maintain, including land rent or financing,

maintenance and conservation feed. Add the cost of a

milkman, loans, insurance, business permits, etc.

Figure ????

 

So, Protection Farms milk, or Happy Cow milk is a

niche premium market. In your farm there are probably

500 "devotees" who would want to buy your milk. Work

out the cost add a 20/30/40% premium and sell it to

them from the farm gate. There, costs covered, work

done, animals protected, profit made for future needs

and present debt payement.

 

What is so ####### difficult about that??? Excuse my

language but I can't see what is wrong with the tree I

am barking up.

 

Of course, I have compartmentalised the system. The

cows should not pay for the oxen. But the oxen are

much more difficult to cost. This is an enormous work.

If we lead by costing the cows first at least half of

the equation is done.

 

What if the price people will pay will pay for both

sexes is enough? Why not go ahead and experiment with

oxen, even subsidies, until the necessary skills have

been worked out? At the Manor the oxen are adopted,

not so much the cows, as Shyam is running the above

system of extended lactations, but the oxen hardly

work.

I do not go along with milk as the only purpose, but

on a commercial model it would be what the consumer

would be most interested in. I fully agree the oxen

need engagement otherwise they are a utilitarian

nightmare.

 

Would it be so wrong to run a business, now say in its

20th year, with a herd of 120 cows. 24 to 40 could be

milking (maybe I have sold some off to other

Protection Farms) giving 200-300 litres of milk a day.

Much of that could make all sorts of added-value

products, with 1 litre yielding a price of $2,

compared with normal dairies at $0.30.

In this farm there are 60 to 80 oxen. Presently

trained and working are 20 to 30, with all new oxen

trained up with the now fully trained people. The

produce is full off specialist goods, and with

demand-side management my customers buy veg from me at

the normal market price.

 

Here, the cows and oxen should have an environmental,

social and economic system to maintain there

continuity.

 

It requires planning, costing, financing, marketing

and working it. It is a viable business. Why don't we

do it?

Why not approach this as any other business, except

for its speciality to us and God?

 

If you would like to see my discussion document VEDA &

Protection Farms, and the power point document, I can

attach it. I am new to the cow conference so I do not

know if it will pass through, otherwise I can cut and

paste.

 

 

HKDD, sorry I am attacking you somewhat, but I totally

disagree with your stance and fell that your adhesion

to self-suficient cow protection is blinkering you to

a new thing. There is an almost 10% vegetarian

population in the UK, and with mad cows that is likely

to go up and up. From my article in The Vegetarian

Magazine it is clear that on presentation of an

alternative farming system with lifetime-protected

farm animals, which most are ignorant of, the

vegetarian consumer wants this system. Is ISKCON just

going to sit by whilst some psuedo devotee or even,

God-forbid, a karmi goes ahead and steels the baby.

Please waken up to the fact that this is a future

billion-dollar market.

 

Yours idealistically and pragmaticsally,

 

Mark Chatburn.

 

Rohita dasa

[Guest guest]

Prabhuji, I´m very glad to hear someone on this

conference embracing what to me is an obviously

excelent idea.

 

> I do not mind the concept of varnasrama, but

> varnasrama involves a large

> community of people with the same spiritual center.

> On the way to that goal,

> one has to work within this present world in a way

> that is realistic.

 

Protection Farms, Happy Farms, PAL Farms (Protecting

Animals for Life) are names I invented as a marketing

tool. This to me is part of getting real.

 

Even

> many devotees will, when offered the choice, not

> hesitate buying milk from

> slaughter cows just because it's cheaper.

>

> We live in a world where people do not hesitate in

> the slightest to kill

> cows. Prabhupada asked, "Would you kill your

> mother?"

 

If it´s cheaper than not, it seems we would. But it´s

not so simple, the other option is not available.

 

> Prabhupada mentions clearly in his Krsna book that

> the cowherdmen made

> business with their milk products. They were very

> rich. The difference is

> that at that time everyone was willing to pay the

> price, since "happy cow

> milk" was the standard and only option.

>

100% what I am trying to say. Pay the price.

 

 

I just wanted to say I'm excited to read

> the texts of all of you

> in this conference and am anticipating for better

> times where we will have

> the option to buy "happy cows milk" (at the price it

> costs).

>

 

Me too, Prabhu,

 

Mark

 

 

Get personalized email addresses from Mail - only $35

a year! http://personal.mail./