Guest guest Posted May 1, 2002 Report Share Posted May 1, 2002 Dear Giridhari prabhu, PAMHO AGTSP Thank you for your letter of April,12 2002. Your project sounds enlivening and your concerns are very valid and important. The questions you asked are very serious and carry alot of spiritual importance. I'm sorry to hear that the previous attempts to do ox-power agriculture there by devotees was not successful. It is harder to do this work with the oxen, as it does take longer to accomplish the same amount of work that a tractor can do.However, by using the oxen some of your questions asked in this letter will be answered. 1) How is it possible to have milk and bulls if every year every cow > > must have a calf? I think that to sell some of the calves is > > compulsory... Selling the calves is a very dangerous concept and in this age of Kali Yuga this almost inevitable means that the animal will be killed. Even in India, which is a country percieved to be a cow protection country, since Vedic times, the killing of the cows and bulls is steadily rising in the country as well as thousands of animals being smuggled out of the country daily for slaughter. In Srimad Bhagawatam we are shown how Kali Yuga is ushered in with the sudra dressed as a King and beating the cow and bull, which was unheard of in those times. If you want to do a commercial dairy which requires that a certain quota of milk be met each day throughout the year then your problem of too many cows and bulls becomes evident quickly. In this system the cow is bred and gives birth and is milked for 305 days. She is again breed after 2 heat cycles which is about 60 days after birthing. At the end of 305 days milking she is dried off and allowed to rest for the last 2 months of her pregnancy. She again calves and is back into the milking parlor to again help the farmer meet his milk quota for economic gain. The problem then becomes what to do with all the offspring. If you are milking 10 cows and having 10 babies a year, the 1st year alone you have doubled the size of your heard and in 10 years you will have possible 110 animals depending on mortality rate. Lets say that 10 died in the first 10 years of your operation you would still have 100 animals. The average life span of a cow is between 15 and 18 years with some living over 20 years. So, in reality your herd is still a young to middle aged herd with the old age factor still to become reality in another 5 to 8 years. This is the simple numbers of the breeding every year for milk for profit if you don't sell or kill or give your animals away. For the European breeds, for the most part, the cows will stay in milk for some time without breeding them each year. Of course you won't get as much milk, but you will decrease the herd size by breeding less. I recently dried off one of our cows who had been milking for 5 1/2 years on one calving. There was a cow at Gita Nagari who died recently. She had been milking for 8 years. ) Is it correct to take the milk from karmis farming where > > slaughtering bulls is a day affair? Isn't it better to have our cows > > protected, have our milk, and then try to find out someone not so much > > violent to whom sell our calves? I feel that if this is not better it > > would be perhaps equal as to buy milk at the supermarket. To take milk from the Karmi farms is like supporting the slaughterhouse industry. Their commercial dairy is only to exploit the innocent cows and then when they don't produce enough milk to pay for their feed they are sent to slaughter.Many devotees use the argument of "ajanya sukriti" and say the cows are benefitted by the milk being offered to the deities. This may be true, but it becomes an excuse for not establishing rural farm (village) communities to show the example. Srila Prabhupada said that example is better than precept. What the world needs to see is a multi-faceted holistic Krsna Conscious farm (village) community in living color. Multi-faceted means that all of the by products of the cow/bull are utilized fully. Milk, urine, dung, ox-power and overall religious benefits. Each one of these has various expansions of its own, for instance:dung can be rendered into methane gas, medicines, incense, fertilizer; dried and burned for cooking and then the ashes from the cooking can be used as potash in gardening; used as a wall covering, pot cleaner; used in Deity worship, etc, etc. Why can't we take care of our own cows? In your statement you are propounding the same consciousness that has prevailed in ISKCON for many years. We want to drink milk but we don't want to take care of the cows and thier offspring. To me this is sense gratification without being responsible for ones activities. If a mother and father have more children than they can financialy,emotionally,spiritually maintain then they are considered as irresponsable parents.Because we want to drink milk we are causing the breeding of the cows so they can provide milk. Quickly we have more cows than we can maintain and we think of selling them or giving them away. This is totally irresponsable, in my opinion. Procuce milk for the requirements of the Deities. Protected cows milk is like offering Lord Krsna Mother Yasoda's milk. Milk from cows raised with the commercial consciosness of the slaughterhouse is like drinking milk from Putana. In days of yore in India the main consideration for breeding was to provide good bullocks so that the agricultural lifestyle of the country could be maintained. Even today India is still 80% agrarian, but the tractor is now quite common. In some places the tractor is more common than the bullocks. The question then arises what becomes of the bull calves? The answer is that they are killed. It may appear that we are protecting cows and providing milk for our communities. However cow protection does'nt mean milk production. The cow is the embodiment of the religious principles and her legs are the 4 pillars of religious life. In Kali Yuga only 1 leg (pillarof religious life) of the cow is left standing,TRUTHFULNESS. As Kali Yuga procresses so do the attacks on the cows and bulls and what they represent spiritually. So when you think to sell the cows and thier offspring you are helping the advancement of Kali Yuga and the attack on the last remaining leg of the religious principles,TRUTHFULLNESS. I would be interested in starting a little program of cow protection > > (we are performing organic coltures) to farm little part of our land > > and to learn and then trasmit for future devotees this important > > practice. Srila Prabhupada has explained to us that to start something is easy. To break something is also easy. The difficult part is the maintaining what you have started in a responsible fashion. If you are going to keep cows please research how many animals your land can maintain and don't go over that number, there is no selling of animals. Keep cows for the protection of the religious principles and to provide milk for the deities. Use the bulls in the service of Lord Krsna. Use all of the by products of the cows to show a holistic village lifestyle based on the relatioship of COW/MAN/LAND in service to Lord KRSNA. These topics can all be expanded and I have therefore placed this letter in the cow conference where there are in addition to myself other experienced devotees who may wish to comment and lend some more knowledge to your inquires. If you would like to discuss privately we can do that also. I hope these answers find you in a thoughtful Krsna Conscious mood. yr servant, Balabhadra das - <agrigovinda (AT) libero (DOT) it> ISCOWP (Balabhadra Dasa & Chaya Dasi - USA) <ISCOWP (AT) pamho (DOT) net> Cc: <iscowp (AT) earthlink (DOT) net> Friday, April 12, 2002 2:10 AM Some questions... > Dear Balabhadra prabhu, > > please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupada. > > I'm Giridhari dasa from Italy, disciple of H.H.Radhanath Swami, and I > > have started a big project of prasadam distribution as agricolturists. > > Me and another devotee, H.G.Ekabhakti Prabhu, are distributing big > > quantities of biscuits, crackers, grape anf apple juice, getting the > > ingredients from our land (100.000 square meters) cultivated with a > > little tractor. The use of the tractor is now compulsory if we want to > > maintain so big distribution, 10 devotees working there, ecc. In the > > past some devotees started oxen farming but every project falled down. > > I would be interested in starting a little program of cow protection > > (we are performing organic coltures) to farm little part of our land > > and to learn and then trasmit for future devotees this important > > practice. > > > > If you have time please reply to these questions in regard: > > > > 1) How is it possible to have milk and bulls if every year every cow > > must have a calf? I think that to sell some of the calves is > > compulsory... > > > > 2) How could in the past times devotees have milk, so to have cows, > > without selling or giving as a gift their calves? > > > > 3) Is it correct to take the milk from karmis farming where > > slaughtering bulls is a day affair? Isn't it better to have our cows > > protected, have our milk, and then try to find out someone not so much > > violent to whom sell our calves? I feel that if this is not better it > > would be perhaps equal as to buy milk at the supermarket. > > > > Please excuse me for my disturbance but I feelit is important for the > > project to be aware of all the points I've post to you. > > Your servant, Giridhari dasa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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