By Nityananda Ram Das
I was born in 1948 into a farming family. My uncle, my mother’s brother, was the family member who had more cows than the rest of us. All the family farms were simple in their operation and completely rural in their location. My uncle’s farm was the largest at 180 acres, and in the 1950’s and 1960’s I spent a considerable amount of time being, and eventually working there.
Uncle was primarily a dairy farmer who also grew 60 acres of tobacco as his cash crop, which kept him afloat as a farmer for half a century, from 1930 until his death in 1983. In the early 1950’s traveling salesmen were already visiting and selling their farming products into the rural and often isolated farm communities in western Kentucky and southern Indiana.
By 1955, when I was seven years old my uncle the dairy farmer started operating a cow manure methane contraption he bought from one of those traveling salesmen. It was a simple 1950’s methane to electricity setup that anyone then, or now, could easily make up. In the 1950’s the electricity from the cow manure powered all the barn and house lights, outdoor lighting, trickle charged batteries, and by the 1960’s was enhanced to provide electricity for the milking machines that uncle bought to switch from hand milking because of lack of labor in our rural area.
The manure from the cows was composted, along with vegetable matter from the 20 acre vegetable garden, the small soybean field, and ditch cuttings along the road. This was spread by tractor on all the fields, vegetable, soybean and tobacco. Water for the entire operation came from two wells on the property, of which in the 1950’s the well for the dairy and farm animals drew its power from a combination of methane and solar. Yes, solar in the 1950’s. There was something on the barn roof that did something with sunlight, or something from the heat of the sunlight, that got converted to electricity. It too was very simple and was purchased from one of those traveling farming community salesmen.
Cows grazed in the fields as long as seasonal weather permitted, and during the cold winter months in Indiana, cows were fed in the shovel fed coal furnace heated barn, and went outside at their leisure, which by my observation was most of the time, playing and standing in the snow when they could be inside the warmer barn.
Uncle and his wife had a vegetable stand out front of their property on the rural county road where they displayed the vegetables from the garden, and sold them from mid-spring into the late fall. Sometimes my aunt stood there in the stand, but most of the time with the prices hand written and posted, you filled the bag or box you brought, and left the money in an old cigar box behind the counter.
Cream from some of the milk was separated from the milk by a hand operated cream separator, where you poured the milk and cranked the machine and the cream went one way out and the milk went the other way. In this way Uncle sold cream and milk to a local dairy products supplier and also keep plenty for himself. He made some simple hard cheeses and sold it in his vegetable stand. The cash crop that kept the farm going for over 50 years, the tobacco, was hand cut, pulled on a large cart by the farm tractor and hung in an old barn near the 720 square foot farm house they lived in.
This story of my relatives’ simple farms has a point to make. Uncles farm, the cows, the few pigs, the chickens, the soybean and tobacco fields were a three person operation, with sometimes help from a fourth person during harvest season. We often hear how ISKCON is struggling with its cows and farms to live simply and conduct the business of farming. But by 1955, sixty years ago, my uncle who was born into poverty, never completed grade school because he had to help his father on his family farm, had created a self-sufficient farm all by himself. He was getting all of their electricity from methane and the sun because there were no electric power lines where he lived. He was fertilizing his fields organically, growing organic crops, and spraying a detergent solution my mother invented on 20 acres of vegetables to keep bugs off them.
With a farm hand they were hand milking 85 cows every morning and evening until the equipment was purchased to milk them, which often was more work than hand milking with all the time it took to put it on the cows, take it off, and then clean it. But that was what the local dairy supplier demanded to keep buying milk. There were always bulls on the farm, and in the spring instead of a tractor on the twenty acre vegetable garden you could see my uncle’s wife behind two big well trained bulls, walking an old iron plow through the field. My aunt swore that plowing the vegetable garden with an iron plow was the secret behind her robust garden.
The tomatoes seemed to come from heaven. Soybeans were harvested using the tractor, but vegetables and tobacco were hand cut and hand loaded onto the tractor pulled carts. Vegetables and some fruit from trees were hand canned for the winter and the large amount left was sold, as were homemade dairy products, soybeans, tobacco, and as was the need during that time with small struggling farms, the old dairy cows were unfortunately sold too, mostly to be made into shoes, belts and other leather products.
Of particular note, these small farm families of husband and wife, and one or two poorly paid farm hands, worked from five in the morning until early evening every day but Sunday. They did everything themselves, from fixing the equipment, to improving the farm, to planting and taking in the crops, and looking after the animals.
ISKCON farms have some great successes, and some great failures too, but with the money ISKCON now has, and the large congregation of young devotees, it has tremendous opportunity for self-sufficient farms. The idea that the modern age has changed the opportunity for simple living and high thinking on farms is not true. Self-sufficiency as it was on 1950’s farms could be easily replicated today by any young and very hard working devotee couple.
I liked the no electricity and the kerosene lamps of my early childhood, and most of all I miss those luscious organic tomatoes from heaven.
this sounds great, but there must be a reason why nobody is doing this now. the average age of a farmer in the US is mid-sixties, and in most cases their children do not want to take over. the whole world is leaving the land and moving to the cities. all devotees grew up in suburbs or cities and have no experience of farming. the expectation is that all young people will go to college. none have any experience of manual labor. the only people who can make small farms work are the Amish. they start work on the farm at six years old, and none of them stay in school beyond eighth grade. how do you recognize an Amish man?…from the size of his hands. you have to be born to this kind of work. that’s why the ISKCON farms fail.
but there is a solution. and it’s permaculture. permaculture is city boys’ “farming”. you have to cut out the heavy manual labor in open fields in the hot sun. modern people cannot and will not do it. permaculture is based on perennial tree crops instead of annual grains. this means you can gather nuts and fruit in the shade. no bare open fields. no plowing. it’s a science that is practiced by people like mark shepard in wisconsin. it’s a mixed polyculture based on chestnuts, hazels and other tree crops.
you can be self-sufficient this way if you pay attention to the economics. you have to cut out all the inputs. make your own ethanol fuel from the hazels, or industrial hemp. you have to learn to share. don’t try it has a couple. no modern farm can function successfully with just two people unless you have a lot of capital to buy expensive machinery. the Amish can do it because they have ten children none of whom get a paycheck. the average Amish farm is 80 acres..the average non-Amish farm is 500 acres, and getting bigger as smaller farms go out of business.
we have ISKCON communities. we need a lot more. SP said there should be “hundreds of New Vrindavans”. establishing “intentional communities” is a science which must be studied. There are several examples of successful intentional communities that have learned how to make it work, like Twin Oaks in VA. ISKCON needs to study these communities.
Please accept my humble obeisances,
all glories to Srila Prabhupada and his harinam sankirtan mission!
answer to the comment by cha108
“..nobody is doing this now” if I would be a karmi I would feel ofended. I am doing that now. Since I was 19 till now 34 and by Krishna’s grace could continue best forever in Vrindavan. And know more than hundered just in my area who do as well.
“..the whole world is leaving the land and moving to the cities”, well some people in some countries think their country is the whole world. In country where I stay Slovakia people moving from cities to villages, I have sure wisdom that in countries like UK, Spain, Italy and Czech is the same movement going on. People from any social status, poor buy land more in secluded place because of low price, rich children have bigger choice but generally end also in secluded areas for privat comfort, poor have thached roof, richer have homestead. Cows, horses, own vegetables, solar panels, fresh water etc.
Maybe you would be surprised how many people selling ghee on the internet even, fresh fruits without spraying, milk, cheess or holiday’s cottages. Also I know many people attending factory or office job and saving money for a land.If you have ever tasted for example carrot from good soil and without any additions you want probably no more the supermarket thing.
I do not know how in your country but here NO pension for our generation, who will be bereft of land could find himself in very difficult situation, as care house are not for free and the payment is three times higher than avarge pension, so if one’s children do not pay or do not care = homeless. And many young and middle age people realizing in present economic situation the land is one of the solutions.
“..all devotees grew up in suburbs or cities and have no experience of farming..” hmm..no comment, because of this thinking many day to day leaders keep our movent in a bit backwards in the field. Definitivelly any person in any city can also grow a lot of food, for example the city of London in 2007 launched program of city growing, they provides founding for roof gardens, compost and training including law backing. Actually one does not require big land for personal food, the big land is required by cows’ food.
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I have grown up at homestead and my father wanted me to be a big office guy in the big cities, but at 19 I break the idea, meanwhile the heads of the family were decreasing the self sufficient activities I took one of their houses and share of 3 acres for self maintainance, in few months I have realized how much time I have for reading. The best thing I liked was no more traveling to school or city, job etc. In whole my life I have been employed by a boss no more than 21 months. It is very nice not to have a boss. I read in Srimad Bhagavatam that twice born people should not be employed, so generally devotees claim it is not possible but no one could really explained why it is not possible. Of course I can understand if one is habituated to feel secure by having a job it could be really mind diffucult to go throu the fearing process of becoming independent. In 7th canto of Srimad Bhagavat chapter 11 verse 14 to 21 is explained how a Brahmana can maintain him and his family without being employed. For example there is trade, or even tilling grounds, there is also he can pick up grains left by proprietor on the fields. One family could need no more that one kg of grains daily so it is just six bags. Easy to get six bags during harvest as they have tens thousands of bags, if one comes to field it is normal to get half price or even for free those ragged bags or sometimes huge quantity of grains are just laying down due to repair of a machinery. It is just one thing of course. Than one may say, well I do not have a time, of course because the time is provided to the boss, than few hours daily with transport not only for job but with wife to supermarket etc, and than no body expect to do another garden job. I do not want to advertise but Robert Kiosaky does nice service in his books how to transmit from to be employed to be secured without a job for boss.
In my bodily family the timber for roofs are from our own forests. It is not really complicated to chop a tree and by very simple maschine to extract form of girder. Just three people enough to make girders for whole house and roof in one week. If one cannot work because of little hands, so it is ok, employ three cheap workers, they will cost 360 euros, timber is from your forest for free and borrow the maschine for 100 euros, but generally people work day and night and then pay company 30 000 eu to have same timber. It is better to buy forest and then have timber you and your children.
Mahaksa Das
here in alachua county fl, usa, balabadra of iscoep, has 57 acres, 25 or so cows and oxen. they pay 14,000$ per year tax on house, and 2000$ tax on land . very costly, ya. much appreciated articles , i am helping him on my xmass break from krishna lunch . satyahit das