Call for GBC Cow Protection Reports

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Dear Assembled Devotees,

 

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

 

We are writing to express our concern for the welfare of cows cared for in

ISKCON cow protection programs around the world. In 1999 ISKCON's GBC

enacted ISKCON Law 507 which provides a carefully formulated set of Minimum

Cow Protection Standards for all cows in ISKCON facilities. Crucial to the

effectiveness of these standards is Section XIV, which outlines local GBC

quarterly responsibility to visit every cow facility and traveling program,

meet with its cowherds and ox teamsters, and to submit a written report to

the Ministry of Cow Protection and Agriculture detailing the age and health

of the cows in the herd and how the standards of ISKCON Law 507 are being

maintained. (If the local GBC is not able to personally visit a farm, he or

she may appoint a monitor to carry out these duties, though the monitor

should not be one of the cowherds, since that defeats the intent of the law,

which is to provide a system of checks and balances, and to give the

cowherds direct communications with a GBC to communicate pressing needs of

the cows.) The Ministry of Cow Protection and Agriculture is then supposed

to maintain these reports on file.

 

The purpose of the cow protection reports is to promote accountability in

ISKCON cow programs. With cow reports on file, when the Ministry receives

reports of cow abuse, it has a means to ascertain whether such allegations

warrant further investigation or whether they stem from misunderstanding .

With at least some factual basis, the Ministry can act on allegations and

concerns rationally and effectively. Just as importantly, situations which

historically have led to cow abuse, such as overbreeding, poor fencing, and

lack of land, can be brought under control before they lead to disaster.

Solutions can be worked out for present problems, and long-range plans made

to fulfill Srila Prabhupada's vision of cow protection as a central element

of the ideal, healthy spiritual community.

 

Unfortunately, even though it was they who enacted ISKCON's Minimum Cow

Protection Standards into law, the GBC have been overwhelmingly negligent in

carrying out their important duty of meeting with cowherds and submitting

cow protection reports. In July 2000, the Ministry of Cow Protection and

Agriculture sent requests to all GBC and known monitors for cow protection

reports. Since then it has sent numerous additional private requests for

reports. The response has been negligible. At this point only

Pennsylvania's ISKCON Gita-nagari farm is current with all the required

quarterly Cow Protection Reports.

 

The ISKCON Ministry for Cow Protection and Agriculture feels it has an

obligation to see that ISKCON Law 507 is carried out. However,

unless GBC members fulfill their legal duties in this matter by meeting with

cowherds and sending us timely reports, we do not have sufficient

information to counteract reports of cow abuse that arise, and we cannot

completely be responsible for the cows that are part of programs which are

developing in ways which are contrary to ISKCON law. The Ministry of Cow

Protection and Agriculture is an unfunded ministry, run by householders who

are protecting a small herd of Krsna's cows on their farm and living on a

poverty-level income. Thus global trotting to personally visit all centers

is not a possibility at this time. Therefore we have spent a great deal of

time requesting cooperation with ISKCON law 507 through the facility of

e-mail.

 

To give an idea of why lack of regular reports from the GBC causes us deep

concern, consider the example of alleged discrepencies to ISKCON Law 507

which have been presented to our ministry regarding the following three

projects:

 

Vrndavana – The Ministry has received complaints of irresponsible

overbreeding focused on milk production, resulting in up to 25-30 new

animals per year, so that presently there are 217 animals on 7 acres of land

(200 cows need at least 200 acres in the Vrndavana climate). Although the

natural

cow-to-bull ratio is 50/50, the Ministry has received allegations from

several sources which claim that cows outnumber bulls as much as 128 to 62 ,

some allegations say that ISKCON Vrndavana's bulls have been sold to

slaughter. These allegations are difficult to refute when no quarterly

records of cows (including bulls) names and ages have been submitted. Other

allegations state funds allegedly raised to help out the goshalla are often

diverted to maintain the temple. If there is no Goshalla Trust established

as requested by Srila Prabhupada and as required by ISKCON Law 507, again,

such allegations are very, very difficult to refute. The Ministry has

received no cow protection reports whatsoever from the Vrndavana GBC, but has

received a partial report from a concerned devotee.

 

Mayapura – Only one report has been received from Mayapura goshalla. Again

there is a grave concern for the welfare of the bulls, since there is no

regular ox training program, and the cow/bull ratio is alarmingly

unbalanced: as much as 93 cows to 15 bulls as of last summer. Furthermore,

these 108 animals should have a minimum of 108 acres of land, but is alleged

to have less than 5 acres. The production of 25 calves in the past year and

no ox program not only indicates overbreeding but also a program is

dangerously oriented toward milk production, rendering bull calves useless

and unwanted. The fact that Mayapur's GBC has not submitted any cow

protection report to update the Ministry on conditions since the flood in

October causes further concern.

 

New Gokula, Australia – The Ministry has received allegations of flagrant

neglect of animal's health and even violent treatment of animals. The New

Gokula GBC has submitted no cow protection reports.

 

Without the cooperation of the GBC in supplying regular quarterly cow

reports, it is difficult to ascertain what the real situation is when we

receive allegations like those mentioned above. This poses a potential

public relations problem, since such celebrities as Paul McCartney and Jackie

Chan

have endorsed PETA's attacks on the extensive, and exceptionally cruel cow

slaughter practices which have developed in India in recent years. Without

regular reports from the GBC, we have no statistical means of defending the

practices on ISKCON farms if questioned on these matters.

 

The following is a list of the GBC with known farms. Please correct us if

we have some incorrect information. It is here indicated how many GBC or

GBC monitors or head cowherds have completed reports by each farm how many

reports have been sent in. Only Gita-nagari is current with their reports –

4 needed each year. The GBC report form and standards (you will need the

standards to fill out the forms) can be downloaded from the Resource section

of www.iscowp.com. Upon their completion, they can be sent to

iscowp (AT) earthlink (DOT) net Forms and standards can also be acquired from the

ISCOWP address by inquiry. We more than welcome interested persons who

would like to help fulfill these reports. Thank you for your consideration,

and may this letter find you well and in blissful Krsna consciousness.

 

Your servant,

 

Balabhadra das

ISKCON Minstry for Cow Protection and Agriculture

 

 

BB Govinda Swami:

Known Farms: Vrndavana, Mauritus, Kazakhstan (no reports)

 

Bhakti Caitanya Swami:

Known Farms: Pretoria (1 report)

 

Bhakti Swarup Damodar Swami:

Farms?

 

Bhaktitirtha Swami:

Known Farms: 2 in France (0 reports), New Vrndavana (1 report ), Gita Nagari

(current-4 reports), Ghana (0 reports)

 

Bhaktivaibhava Swami:

Known Farms: Czech Republic (1 report), Belarus (0 report), Italy (0 report)

 

Bir Krsna Goswami

Known Farms: New Talavan (no reports), Gokula (1 report), Murari Sevaka (1

report)

 

Giridhari Swami:

Farms?

 

Gopal Krsna Goswami:

Known Farms: Vrndavana (0 report), Mayapur (1 report), Uganda (no

report)Maharashtra (0 report)

 

Guru Prasad Swami:

Known Farms: Colombia, Brazil, Mexico (1 report each for Columbia, Costa Rica,

Mexico)

 

Hari Vilas Das: Co-GBC for USA:

Farms?

 

Jayapataka Swami:

Known Farms: Mayapur (1 report), Karnataka, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Bolivia,

Ecuador, Peru, ( 0 reports)

 

Kavicandra Swami:

Known Farms: Indonesia, Ghana ( 0 reports)

 

Madhu Sevita Das:

Known Farms: Belgium (1 report), Italy, Spain ( 0 reports)

 

Malati-devi Dasi: Acting GBC

Known Farms: West Virginia (1 report )

 

Niranjana Swami:

Known Farms: Belarus ( 0 report)

 

Paramgati Swami:

Known Farms: 2 in Brazil, 2 in France, (0 reports)

 

Prabhavisnu Swami:

Known Farms: 3 in Australia (0 reports), New Zealand (1 report ), Tirupati,

Bangladesh, Malaysia (others 0 reports)

 

Prthu Das: Assistant GBC

Known Farms: Murari Sevaka (1 report), Nrsimha-ksetra (0 report)

 

Radhanatha Swami:

Known Farms: West Virginia (1 report), Karnataka, Daund, Maharastra (others 0

report)

 

Ramai Swami:

Known Farms: 3 in Australia (0 reports), New Zealand (2 reports), Indonesia (o

reports)

 

Ravindra Svarupa Das:

Known Farms: Gita Nagari (4 reports), Nrsimha-Ksetre, Sweden (others 0 reports)

 

Rohini Suta Das:

Known farm: Serbia (constant contact), Croatia (0 reports)

 

Sesa Das:

Known Farm: Alachua, Guyana ( 0 reports)

 

Sivarama Swami:

Known Farms: England (2 reports), Ireland (0 report), Hungary (1 report)

 

Suhotra Swami:

Known Farms: Poland (0 reports) Czech Republic (1 report), Begium (1 report)

 

Tamal Krishna Goswami:

Kown Farms: Mayapur (1 report)

 

Vaidyanatha Das: Full GBC

Known Farms: Belarus (0 report)

 

Virabahu Das:

Known Farms: Argentina 9, Puerto Rico, Guyana, Peru, Ecuador (0 reports)

 

 

 

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"Jagatera Hari (das) (Zurich - CH)" <Jagatera.Hari (AT) pamho (DOT) net>

"ISCOWP (Balabhadra Dasa & Chaya Dasi - USA)" <ISCOWP (AT) pamho (DOT) net>

Sunday, January 28, 2001 2:25 PM

Call for GBC Cow Protection Reports

 

 

> Hare Krishna

> Please accept my humble obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada.

>

> My name is Jagatera Hari Dasa and I am belonging to the Zürich Temple, New

> Jaganath Puri. I am in charge of the cow fundraising and I am visiting

> regularly the devotee farmer who is taking care of our cows. The Temple

has

> 5 Oxen and 9 Cows on our Project in Dole, France. Twelve of them are

between

> sixteen and twenty two years old, the remaining two are six and nine years

> old.

> We have set aside 10 ha of fenced land which serve the cows as Summer

> fields. For the winter we have, a from three sides closed and roofed

stable

> in which the animals can walk freely. At this time we feed them hey which

we

> usually buy from neighboring farmers.

>

> Legally we will be facing some difficulties since our devotee farmer, who

> stayed with us almost three years, will move to England in order to send

his

> children to a proper school. It is a problem, because according to French

> law cows can only be cared for by a qualified farmer.

> We have two options, either we get our cows out of the normal status which

> classifies them as milk or flesh animals and establish them instead

> officially as pat animals.(We are trying to do that at the moment.) Or

then

> we will have to give them outwardly into pension to a neighboring farmer,

> but would factually have them on our land and care for them ourselves.

> The other problem and danger we are facing here in France is due to BSE. A

> few months ago the French government decided to kill 6 Millions cows who

> were above a certain age. At the end they didn't because they lacked the

> needed funds. That´s also why we are intensely trying to get them out of

> the common cow status.

>

> We have no milking cow nor OX program. We also decided to not breed any

> further cows. We just concluded that it is not healthy if a still very

shaky

> institution sets up cow protecting programmes. Since their active members

> change all few years there is no guarantee that the cows will be properly

> and steadily cared for throughout their whole lifes.

> We feel strongly that at the giving moment cow protection programmes

should

> only be initiated from the side of independent, mature and committed

vaisyas

> who are conscious what it means to take properly care of cows. The cows

are

> like helpless children who need the intensive lifelong care of their

loving

> parents. As long as this is granted they feel safe and happy and can then

> even perform the most incredible miracles.

> A few years ago we had a cow, her name is Lalita, who just decided to

start

> and give us milk out of her own accord without giving birth to a calf. The

> last time she had had a calf was 7 years ago. She gave us milk for a few

> years and restarted even after a veterinary had forced her to stop through

> an injection.

> Through the years I have being observing the cows and oxen and I am

> convinced that any cow, if she has once given birth to a calf, can start

and

> give milk at any given moment if she has a lot of loving contact with

> humans. I have even observed that cows who have never gotten the

opportunity

> to give birth to a calf can start to give a kind of salty milk. (Not

> allowing a cow, at least once during her life time, to give birth to a

calf

> is subtle torture and can not be considered as proper cow protection.)

>

> It is nice to hear that you are setting up a control System in order to

> guarantee the safety of mother cow and father ox.

>

> Should you need further informations or wish to appoint a devotee, who is

> not directly involved in our local cow protection, in order to get regular

> reports, please let me know.

>

> ys, in the service of mother cow, Jagatera Hari Dasa.

>

> PS: Here in Zürich the Swiss Sankirtan devotees, after years of

distributing

> very successfully a 40 pages pamphlet about Vegetarianism, feel strongly

> that the time has come to sensualize the population about the actual

> position of mother cow through a similar pamphlet. If you have any info.

> materials which we could use to set up such a pamphlet, please let me

know.

>