BTG: Why Commercial Dairies Can't Stop Killing -- Vol 30, 1996

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Why Commercial Dairies Can't Stop Killing

By Hare Krsna Devi Dasi

 

FROM TIME TO TIME I receive letters from people who want to help our Hare Krsna

farms develop. They often suggest we market "organic milk" or "milk from

protected cows." So it was with interest that I read the following instruction

by Grandfather Bhismadeva to Maharaja Yudhisthira in the Mahabharata: "They who

live by selling hair, poisons, or milk have to sink in hell."

 

Bhismadeva is considered one of the twelve great mahajanas, or authorities on

Krsna consciousness. He spoke these words several thousand years ago. By

looking at more recent history we can see the suffering these commercial

activities have caused.

 

To see the miseries caused by "selling hair" one has only to look at the vast

enclosure movement of the 1500s and 1600s, when peasants were swept off their

land and left to starve so the manorial lords could expand a profitable wool

industry.

 

As for the sufferings caused by poison sellers, one has only to look at the

environmental havoc caused by pesticides over the last fifty years.

 

But what about selling milk? How would that cause suffering?

 

Consider the process of marketing milk. (For simplicity, we'll set aside

government subsidies, which make the process more complex.) The price of milk,

as with any product, must take into account the cost of land, labor, and

anything else needed to produce the milk. All other things being equal, in an

open market people will buy from whoever can produce milk for the least cost.

To "live by selling milk," therefore, I must by all means bring my price down

to a competitive level; otherwise, I'll lose my market share to more

"efficient" farmers.

 

How does this affect the protection of cows? To protect cows I need extra land,

labor, and feed for animals not producing milk, including bulls, oxen, and

older cows. Obviously, this pushes up my production costs and the price I must

charge for milk. In 1988 at Gita Nagari, the Hare Krsna farm in Pennsylvania,

we calculated that to produce one gallon of milk from a mature protected herd

costs $10.00 a gallon. We would not have been able to "make a living" from

selling milk.

 

A farmer selling milk must do whatever it takes to bring his commodity into a

competitive price range. If one farmer slaughters his animals to save on feed

costs, then all others must do the same or be priced out of the market. Because

of this sinful activity, the farmer must "sink in hell," as Bhismadeva

describes. That is the karmic reaction for cow slaughter.

 

Srila Prabhupada encouraged devotees to produce for self-sufficiency, not for

the commercial market. Then if there is surplus it can be sold in the market.

So there's a difference between market-oriented production and a subsistence

production that markets the surplus. To produce milk for my needs and sell

what's left over, I don't need a competitive price to survive. If no one buys

my product, I can still survive. I'm not forced to adopt cruel means to keep my

prices low. My living comes from the land.

 

In a letter to Yasomatinandana Dasa (November 28, 1976), Srila Prabhupada

summarized this perspective:

 

“This is a no-profit scheme. For agriculture we want to produce our own food,

and we want to keep cows for our own milk. The whole idea is that we are

ISKCON, a community to be independent from outside help. This farm project is

especially for the devotees to grow their own food. Cotton also, to make their

own clothes. And keeping cows for milk and fatty products.

 

“Our mission is to protect our devotees from unnecessary heavy work to save

time for advancing in Krsna consciousness. This is our mission. So there is no

question of profit, but if easily there are surplus products, then we can think

of trading. Otherwise, we have no such intention.”

 

At present, many of our farms protect cows with the help of charitable

donations, allowing devotees a taste of cow protection until we can institute a

full-fledged Vedic social system. The farms also enable devotees to avoid the

sinful activities inevitably involved with marketing milk.

 

Last of all, a donation to a Krsna conscious farm allows devotees there to feed

and milk cows and farm with oxen. Krsna is pleased to receive offerings made of

milk from protected cows, and grains and vegetables produced by oxen. In

return, He awards to the supporters of cow protection a special appreciation

for His own joyful pastimes of herding cows and bulls in the transcendental

village of Vrndavana.

 

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Why Commercial Dairies Can't Stop Killing Hare Krsna

devi dasi

Back to Godhead, Vol 30, Nov 1996