Clarification: At the end of the paper, in the last section titled “Boycotting Dairy Products:” point number 2 reads:

” Disregards God’s and nature’s arrangement of cooperation between humans and animals as pronounced in the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran, etc.”

Before I submitted the paper, I removed the words: “the Bible and the Koran, etc.” for the reason that modern day advocates of the Bible and Koran support cow slaughter. Somehow that change was not registered in the version sent to Dandavats.

The original reason the words were included in the paper were to express that in both the Bible and the Koran the relationship between man and animal was one of cooperation based on the understanding that man had the right and duty to engage animals in a fair and caring manner.

A few other observations:

It’s the consensus in the medical community that humans are not, by nature, strict vegetarians. Throughout most of history, and knowledge of prehistory gained through archeology, humans everywhere have had some meat in their diets. Also, vegan diets are succeptible to Vitamin B12 deficiency, which causes the fatty lining on the nerve cells to deteriorate. Vitamin B12 deficiency has been called the achilles heel of Veganism. Those who have some animal protein in their diets are never deficient in vitamin B12. In order to get vitamin B12 in their diets, vegans either have to take pills or acquire some exotic microbial food supplements. That just isn’t natural.

If all this is true (and it is), then this means that veganism can never be implemented on a large scale. That means veganism itself actually defeats itself in trying to reach its own objective, namely to divert society away from eating animal flesh. Veganism therefore prevents the propagation of vegetarianism.

Actually, in all of the worlds great civilizations, the only one to succeed in sustaining a predominantly vegetarian culture has been the Hindu civilization, and that is because milk is essential to its religion. It is the civilized method of obtaining sufficient animal protein. China and the Far East under Buddhism, by contrast, tried to follow the principles of ahimsa. But because they did not have Hindu civilization’s milk religious culture, milk was never so ubiquitous in the Far Eastern societies. That fact seems to correlate with the fact that those societies were never significantly vegetarian at any time in their history.

And also, there are many dairy cooperatives in India that employ some measure modern industrial processing yet do not kill the cow. Perhaps the most famous are in Gujarat, such as Nadiad, which is home to Amul Dairy. It is illegal to kill the cow in Gujarat.

Hare Krsna.In Srimad Bagavatam Canto3 Chapter29 Verse15 purport we see that Srila Prabhupada clearly explains that we cannot avoid violence in this world especially applied to food.So the theory of Total Non Violence cannot be applied to anything Agricultural,Horticultural,and Gardening.The idea that just not killing Cows and Bulls is TNV is incomplete and misleading.I have been farming for well over20 years before becoming a devotee and at the Manor and at a devotee run farm.Our approach to this matter is described in this purport that we should commit violence to the minimun amount or by the amount ordered by Krshna.
To try to apply TNV to any food producing concern would be impossible.So from a practicable and pragmatic approach we need to adopt the method that Srila Prabhupada has outlined very clearly in this purport.Of course we would not kill Cows and Bulls but TNV is simply not a way forward in Farming.
I am concerned that if we do not read Srila Prabhupadas books on all of the issues that are before us then these sorts of ideas are accepted.In ISKCON we have had so many discrepancies unnecassarily just because we have NOT been vigilant,open-minded and read Sria Prabhupadas BOOKS.
Of course we are cow protectors but until and unless we base our Economy,individualy and collectively on the land and milk ,just like the example of Vrndavana,this type of project will not happen.We have to progress not just from Agriculture but to Self Sufficienty and then to our Economy based on Cows and Land.There is a whole array of issues still to be decided that have not been thought about yet.We need a workforce with the proper skills, the knowledge, the capabilities, the community spirit,the transparentcy,the investment ,the techniques,and so forth.Your humble servant Dusyanta dasa

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