"We do not condemn modern civilization but we don't like to get it at the cost of God Consciousness, that is suicide."
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The Beauty of Beans
"One acre of beans produces ten times more protein than an acre of pasture set aside for meat production." -Higher Taste
Moundsville, West Virginia
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ISKCON Gita Nagari Farm Community
Port Royal, Pennsylvania
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ISKCON New Goloka Farm Community
Hillsborough, North Carolina
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ISKCON New Talavan Farm Community
Carriere, Mississippi
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ISKCON Saranagati Eco-Village
British Columbia, Canada
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ISKCON Gaura Vrindaban
Paraty, Brazil
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ISKCON Krishna Valley Farm Community
Somogyvamos, Hungary
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Bhaktivedanta Eco-Village
Sagar Taluq, South India
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ISKCON Cow Protection
"There are so many facilities afforded by cow protection, but people have forgotten these arts. The importance of protecting cows is therefore stressed by Krsna in Bhagavad-gita (krsi-go-raksya-vanijyam vaisya-karma svabhavajam [Bg. 18.44]). Even now in the Indian villages surrounding Vrndavana, the villagers live happily simply by giving protection to the cow. They keep cow dung very carefully and dry it to use as fuel. They keep a sufficient stock of grains, and because of giving protection to the cows, they have sufficient milk and milk products to solve all economic problems. Simply by giving protection to the cow, the villagers live so peacefully. Even the urine and stool of cows have medicinal value."
-Srila Prabhupada
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Indian beef production is predicted to increase by 5% in 2009. This is reported to be due to strong export demand and rising domestic consumption (ZMP and Brazilian Meat Monitor).
According to reports, production of mainly buffalo meat is set to rise to approximately 2.7 million tonnes. Around a third of production (850,000 tonnes) is predicted to be exported, mainly to South East Asia and the Gulf states. In such markets where Australian and Indian product co-exist, Australian beef faces considerable price competition from Indian buffalo beef.
There is major potential for India to significantly increase production because of the current low level of technology across the supply chain. Currently, India is considered the world’s third biggest beef exporter in terms of volume, behind Brazil and Australia.
by Robin Winter, Archaeology Online
The world over, the term “sacred cow” has come to mean any stubborn loyalty to a long-standing institution which impedes natural progress. The term originates in India, where the cow is said to be literally worshiped, while thousands of humans suffer from undernourishment. The common, popular view of India in the West is that of an underdeveloped nation steeped in superstition. Overpopulated, overcrowded, undereducated, and bereft of most modern amenities, India is seen to be a backward nation in many respects by “progressive” Western civilization. “If only India would abandon her religious superstitions and kill and eat the cow!” Over several decades many attempts have been made by the “compassionate” West to alleviate unfortunate India’s burden of poor logic, and to replace her superstitions with rational thinking.
Much of the religious West finds common ground with the rationalists, with whom they otherwise are usually at odds, on the issue of India’s “sacred cow.” Indeed, worshiping God is one thing, but to worship the cow while at the same time dying of starvation is a theological outlook much in need of reevaluation. Man is said to have dominion over the animals, but it would appear that the Indians have it backwards.
Popular opinion is not always the most informed opinion; in fact, this is usually the case. The many attempts to wean India from the nipple of her outdated pastoral culture have all failed. After 200 years of foreign occupation by the British, and after many subsequent but less overt imperialistic attempts, we find that although India has changed, the sacred cow remains as sacred as ever. In all but two Indian states, cow slaughter is strictly prohibited. If legislation were passed today to change that ruling, there would be rioting all over India. In spite of considerable exposure to Western ideas, one late Indian statesman said, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, “I think it is a good idea. When will they begin?”
An unbiased look at perhaps the longest-standing culture of the world, its roots and philosophy, may help us to see things a little more as they are — even about our own way of life. Sometimes we have to stand back to get the full picture. It is a natural tendency to consider one’s own way the best, but such bull-headedness may cause us to miss seeing our own shortcomings. An honest look at the headlines of our home town newspaper may inspire us to question exactly what it is we are so eager to propound. (more…)
By Kate Wilson, The New York Times
A few months after Lloyd reported on the Swiss government’s conclusion that plants have rights, the Ecuadorian population went one step further and voted to change their constitution to proclaim that nature has “the right to the maintenance and regeneration of its vital cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.”
The New York Times felt that the Ecuadorian concept of plants’ rights was significant enough to include it in their 8th Annual Year in Ideas list. Enquire further to find out what this could mean for conservation efforts in the South American nation.
The precise scope of nature’s rights is unclear. Referring to Pachamama, an indigenous deity whose name roughly translates as “Mother Universe,” the text puts less emphasis on defending specific species than on the rights of ecosystems writ large. And it is uncertain how, exactly, a country as poor as Ecuador can protect those rights — though observers expect to see a raft of new lawsuits against oil and gas companies.
As Risen notes, it remains to be seen if ecosystems will become protected because of the constitutional changes, but what is clear is that the local population thinks it’s worth a try. Almost 70% of Ecuadorians voted in favor of protecting nature in this method.
Ecuador drafted the changes with the help of the U.S. based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Along with it’s work in Ecuador, the Fund “has assisted more than a dozen local municipalities with drafting and adopting local laws recognizing Rights of Nature.” The basis of these rights “change the status of ecosystems from being regarded as property under the law to being recognized as rights-bearing entities.”
With a world economy, partially-based on the sanctity of property rights, in a nosedive it’s possible that radical ideas like this will take hold. We’ll watch with cautious optimism that other nations will follow the Ecuadorian lead to respect and protect our interconnected planet.
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Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.10.4
TRANSLATION
During the reign of Mahārāja Yudhisthira, the clouds showered all the water that people needed, and the earth produced all the necessities of man in profusion. Due to its fatty milk bag and cheerful attitude, the cow used to moisten the grazing ground with milk.
PURPORT
The basic principle of economic development is centered on land and cows. The necessities of human society are food grains, fruits, milk, minerals, clothing, wood, etc. One requires all these items to fulfill the material needs of the body. Certainly one does not require flesh and fish or iron tools and machinery. During the regime of Mahārāja Yudhisthira, all over the world there were regulated rainfalls. Rainfalls are not in the control of the human being. The heavenly King Indradeva is the controller of rains, and he is the servant of the Lord. When the Lord is obeyed by the king and the people under the king’s administration, there are regulated rains from the horizon, and these rains are the causes of all varieties of production on the land. Not only do regulated rains help ample production of grains and fruits, but when they combine with astronomical influences there is ample production of valuable stones and pearls. Grains and vegetables can sumptuously feed a man and animals, and a fatty cow delivers enough milk to supply a man sumptuously with vigor and vitality. If there is enough milk, enough grains, enough fruit, enough cotton, enough silk and enough jewels, then why do the people need cinemas, houses of prostitution, slaughterhouses, etc.? What is the need of an artificial luxurious life of cinema, cars, radio, flesh and hotels? Has this civilization produced anything but quarreling individually and nationally? Has this civilization enhanced the cause of equality and fraternity by sending thousands of men into a hellish factory and the war fields at the whims of a particular man?
It is said here that the cows used to moisten the pasturing land with milk because their milk bags were fatty and the animals were joyful. Do they not require, therefore, proper protection for a joyful life by being fed with a sufficient quantity of grass in the field? Why should men kill cows for their selfish purposes? Why should man not be satisfied with grains, fruits and milk, which, combined together, can produce hundreds and thousands of palatable dishes. Why are there slaughterhouses all over the world to kill innocent animals? Mahārāja Parīksit, grandson of Mahārāja Yudhisthira, while touring his vast kingdom, saw a black man attempting to kill a cow. The King at once arrested the butcher and chastised him sufficiently. Should not a king or executive head protect the lives of the poor animals who are unable to defend themselves? Is this humanity? Are not the animals of a country citizens also? Then why are they allowed to be butchered in organized slaughterhouses? Are these the signs of equality, fraternity and nonviolence?
Therefore, in contrast with the modern, advanced, civilized form of government, an autocracy like Mahārāja Yudhisthira’s is by far superior to a so-called democracy in which animals are killed and a man less than an animal is allowed to cast votes for another less-than-animal man.
We are all creatures of material nature. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that the Lord Himself is the seed-giving father and material nature is the mother of all living beings in all shapes. Thus mother material nature has enough foodstuff both for animals and for men, by the grace of the Father Almighty, Śrī Krsna. The human being is the elder brother of all other living beings. He is endowed with intelligence more powerful than animals for realizing the course of nature and the indications of the Almighty Father. Human civilizations should depend on the production of material nature without artificially attempting economic development to turn the world into a chaos of artificial greed and power only for the purpose of artificial luxuries and sense gratification. This is but the life of dogs and hogs.
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The forests of India are a critical resource for the subsistence of rural peoples throughout the country, but especially in hill and mountain areas, both because of their direct provision of food, fuel and fodder and because of their role in stabilising soil and water resources. As these forests have been increasingly felled for commerce and industry, Indian villagers have sought to protect their livelihoods through the Gandhian method of satyagraha non-violent resistence. In the 1970s and 1980s this resistance to the destruction of forests spread throughout India and became organised and known as the Chipko Movement.
The first Chipko action took place spontaneously in April 1973 and over the next five years spread to many districts of the Himalaya in Uttar Pradesh. The name of the movement comes from a word meaning ‘embrace’: the villagers hug the trees, saving them by interposing their bodies between them and the contractors’ axes. The Chipko protests in Uttar Pradesh achieved a major victory in 1980 with a 15-year ban on green felling in the Himalayan forests of that state by order of India’s then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. Since then the movement has spread to Himachal Pradesh in the North, Kamataka in the South, Rajasthan in the West, Bihar in the East and to the Vindhyas in Central India. In addition to the 15-year ban in Uttar Pradesh, the movement has stopped clear felling in the Western Ghats and the Vindhyas and generated pressure for a natural resource policy which is more sensitive to people’s needs and ecological requirements. (more…)
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By Brigid Schulte, Washington Post
The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn’t find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.
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Article from the Working Villages International website.
There are few places on Earth like the Ruzizi Valley. The average temperature remains around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 C) year round. There is plentiful water, rich volcanic soil and four growing seasons. Twenty years ago the valley was covered with fertile farms and pastures and healthy herds of cows. Ten years of brutal war destroyed all this.
Today, the people of the Ruzizi Valley, in partnership with Working Villages International (WVI) have begun implementing an innovative yet practical economic model of sustainable village development just outside the town of Luvungi. WVI is building from scratch a model village which will have full employment, and private ownership of small farms and businesses. It is a village designed for maximum harmony with the environment. This project is a practical demonstration that it’s possible to profoundly increase living standards in rural Africa by relying on local resources and skills, enhanced by modern appropriate technology. (more…)
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On the Banks of the Ganga: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River by Kelly D. Alley
Introduction: Field Method and Layers of Data
“I started this project about nine years ago while studying tourism and public culture in north India. I remember the day that the original idea for this study emerged from a dialogue I overheard while touring the north Indian city of Benaras with several American and German tourists. While boating along the river Ganga and watching Hindu pilgrims bathe in this sacred river, these tourists discussed the state of the river, expressing horror that the native population did not recognize its polluted nature. One said, “I wouldn’t put my big toe in this river, it is so polluted!” As an observer, I began to think about this Western tourist interpretation in the light of the Hindu practice of bathing in sacred rivers, and about how this view of pollution is juxtaposed against a view of the sacred. Other questions emerged. Are these differences in thinking and approach mirrored within and outside of India in other ways? How should an investigation of these two perspectives, the one in relation to the other, proceed? What shall the methodology be?”
Preview the book On the Banks of the Ganga here.
Article posted on the Food For Life Global website.
Director of Food for Life Global, Priyavrata das (Paul Turner), was interviewed on Healthy Life Radio, touted as the “all positive talk radio” by celebrity vegan Victoria Moran. The 60-minute interview covered such topics as global warming, the economic crisis and the negative karma of eating meat. Paul also talked about the charities solution to world hunger and his experience in war zones during food relief operations.
The full interview can be downloaded from Healthylife.net.
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by Allison Aubrey, National Public Radio
When consumers pay top dollar for organic milk, they know they’re getting dairy that’s free of synthetic growth hormones, pesticides and antibiotics.
Now there’s a move to ensure cows are feeding on plenty of fresh grass if producers want to label the milk as organic.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued draft rules that would require cows to be on pasture during the entire grazing season. The regulation would also require that cows on organic dairy farms get a minimum of 30 percent of their diet from grazing.
The proposals are intended to close a loophole that has allowed some huge feedlots, with thousands of cows, to sell their milk as organic even though their cows rarely graze on fresh grass.
It’s not a perfect proposal, according to the organic watchdog group The Cornucopia Institute. “What we need to do is level the playing field” says Cornucopia’s Mark Kastel. (more…)
