By Dusyanta dasa
February 12, 1976, Mayapur
Morning Walk
“Machine means unemployment for many. Tractor, they’re using, they’re unemployment for bulls and ploughmen and then they, bulls have to be killed. This is going on. Unemployment, then kill them.”
One of the main problems with today’s modernity is the usage of machinery. And why so many Bulls are slaughtered is because there is no work for them to do. If we can understand the nature of today’s farming activities it is apparent that we all follow and support an industrialized farming model. This means we support the use of tractors, the diesel they need to be powered, and we support the use of pharmaceutical artificial fertilizers to grow all the food. Once we have become fully integrated into this agricultural model and system it means as Srila Prabhupada is so eloquently pointing out, …” Bulls have to be killed.”
As we stand back and make the neutral observation on how modern man is farming our planet it means we are all supporting the killing of Bulls. They are unemployed, so kill them. Not many people understand and have experience of farm animals working alongside farm workers, community members and so forth, to farm.
The whole idea behind cow protection is to fully engage both the Cows and the Bulls in an endeavor to integrate our agricultural activities so we don’t have to kill or slaughter the Cows and the Bulls. The idea is that we live by developing a symbiotic relationship with Cows and Bulls so we can develop an agricultural model that obviates the need for tractors, for artificial fertilizers, for chemicals and for unemployment. One of the prime by-products of protecting Bulls and Cows is the production of manures which when handled through an anaerobic process, produces the best fertilizer on the planet and is totally ecologically friendly and totally organic.
The harmful methane gases that are produced by Cows and Bulls are harnessed in the anaerobic process to capture the methane gas for energy to cook, heat water and lighting if need be. Whilst the other positive by-product of this anaerobic process is to produce Ammonium Bi-carbonates in the wet slurry like residues. This is possibly the best fertilizer on the planet for plants. So, we slowly get a wholesome picture of the reasons why Cow Protection is authentically recommended in the Bhagavad-gita As It Is. 18.44.
By marrying up this model of Cow Protection with the right type of Community the whole economic answer is solved so that industrialization in agriculture can be by-passed and given up. The protected Bulls have full time employment. The Cows are protected and produce the wonder food, Milk. Cow Protected and hand produced Milk. And the community work alongside the Bulls and Cows to produce all the food for the Community and whole herd of Cows and Bulls.
Otherwise what are we contributing to if we don’t protect Cows and Bulls. If food production is important to us, we must consider the way the food is produced as it is an integrated component of society and community. We can make the choice between using tractors to produce our food and thereby risk the unemployment of Bulls and Oxen or we can make the choice of Cow Protection so we have at our disposal the alternative to the tractor for drought and torque work, the Oxen. By engaging holistically with cow protection, we solve all the questions of economy. But by choosing Tractor power we still support the whole industrialized food production agricultural model.
And yet by choosing tractor power we put into motion a whole capitalistic economic model that is exploitative, abusive to our planet and implicates us all into a chemical and diesel fueled agricultural model to produce food for a planet of humans. The Agricultural model is existing to feed the world. To produce the grains that we all subsist on. Its not like a back garden or even a horticultural plot, its Agriculture, a step up, and it needs a power source to make the model work so that we can feed the planet. And this is exactly where the Oxen fit in to the model or else don’t we risk unemployment for the Bulls and therefore killing them?
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Capitalism, Tractors and Cow Protection.
As we have noted, the problem with Tractors and machinery in agriculture is that it points to the Bulls and Oxen being unemployed and therefore the Oxen are slaughtered. And in a similar model the Milking Cows are put through modern Milking Parlours to be milked and when the milk production of each individual Cow drops significantly below a predisposed amount she also is slaughtered. In other words, the Bulls, Oxen and Cows are subject to a Capitalistic Model as to whether they will live or be slaughtered. Neither Bulls nor Cows escape such commercial scrutiny. And this is a major problem in Agriculture today. But this commercial influence stretches way beyond just Agriculture. Its insidious influence of greed, exploitation and trampling over the people marches on throughout our planet. That’s why as devotees we want to stamp it out.
As devotees we are encouraged to raise our lifestyles at least to the mode of goodness, which means we could not possibly apply capitalism, tractors and exploitation to our economic model. In fact, what we are encouraged to do is implement and illustrate the practical and pragmatic policies of Cow Protection. Now the ideas behind Cow Protection are multifarious. But one of the main important facets is to base devotee lifestyle on a simple living principle alongside cow protection as the perfect example of the economic model. Essentially this has baffled many people as to how this can be implemented, as making money from cow protection does not really pose a serious option. In fact, to make money from cow protection has been expressly defined in negative terms. It can’t and won’t work.
So, what does it really mean for us to apply cow protection as an economic model for us to live by.??
Well it’s a very simple answer but one of the hardest principles to apply. It is called Self-Sufficiency.
This means that through the model of Cow Protection all our means for living are supplied and sought. If we don’t grow it then you can’t eat it. If you don’t produce it you can’t use it. If you don’t construct it you can’t live there. And so on…………Self-sufficiency is so simple but so hard to demonstrate. The most important single principle for devotees to live in a self-sufficient way is to fully accept the mode of goodness in all its glories and to fully renounce the mode of ignorance and especially the mode of passion. Its terrifyingly difficult for many. They are essentially attached to the mode of passion technology, machines, and transport.
Now the idea of Cow Protection that exists on this planet are two principles, the first is to work with the Cows to produce Milk and then use this milk to live by. It’s not a commercial commodity to market and sell, and definitely not to brand. We are not trying to mimic all the other Milking Parlours around the world by applying capitalism to milk production, that’s a big mistake. What we are aiming to do is produce all our food requirements through milk by processing it into a multitude of foods and fats.
Then secondly, with the Bulls and Oxen we are aiming to work alongside them to produce all the other foods such as grains, legumes, rice, and vegetables and fruits. And to also produce all the food for the whole herd of Cows and Bulls and Oxen. And therefore, we achieve the platform of self-suffiency in food as a first step.
Now what makes cow protection a unique holistic model which exists head and shoulders above every other model that exists on this planet are two principles of Cow Protection. The first is that the Bulls and Oxen provide torque and draught power as an organic and sustainable alternative to Tractors, giving the Oxen and Bulls full employment in many fields of activity. And secondly, when we apply the anerobic process of digestion to all the manures produced by Cows and Bulls we wind up with the production of Methane gas as a green bio-energy and the wet slurries left over from the anerobic digestion produce Ammonium Bi-Carbonates rather than the Nitrates and Nitrites of other digesting systems, which also allow the methane gases to escape and do their damage environmentally. Ammonium Bi-Carbonates are probably the best plant foods on the planet. So we have Cows and Bulls and Oxen, which is one opulence. We then have Milk and Food, the next opulence. Then we have free energy and the best fertilizers on the planet, the third opulence. Then we have workable torque and draught power coming in an organic green sustainable form of Bulls and Oxen, the fourth opulence. So just from a practical pragmatic viewpoint we have four major opulence’s in Cow Protection.
The facilities that Cow Protection offer are also unique in this world. If we perceive Cow Protection in its holistic existence there are many extraordinary facilities it can offer which we find listed in the Srimad Bhagavatam. As listed in the Srimad Bhagavatam 10.6.19 Srila Prabhupada lists these facilities as arts that we have forgotten, forgotten arts of economic solutions. And the reasons we have forgotten these arts is because modernity has taught us counter intuitively and counter productively how to feed ourselves and how to obtain foods.
What we have forgotten aside from agricultural skills and timeless practices are the natural cycles of this world that we lived by. We have forgotten the seasons of food. We have forgotten the timeless relationship we have with food and how we harmonize agricultural practices with growing foods. And we have also forgotten the natural rotation of growing foods for the benefit of plant husbandry.
As mentioned earlier the benefits of cow protection are described in context of economic solutions. However, this is not related to making money, but more to providing foods self-sufficiently and developing the economic model of giving and sharing. Once we start to understand that a capitalistic model can easily be replaced by a more common community model of “sharing opulence’s” and “giving opulence’s away” then the next step to self-suffiency can be taken in its process. We don’t become self-sufficient overnight nor in one step nor in one year. It’s a fully dynamic process. A process that has to be taken as a community in a symbiotic relationship and lifestyle that is in harmony with cow protection. Or at least in relationship to cow protection.
The opulence’s listed in the Srimad Bhagavatam verse 10.6.19 all point to solving the problems of economy. This is the idea of Cow Protection. By using the manures for energy and fertilizers, by keeping a sufficient stock of grains, and sufficient milk and milk products. These are the practical and pragmatic solutions of the art of cow protection. And none of these solutions depend on capitalism. In fact, they are the answer and solution against capitalism. What we are establishing is the answer and alternative so we provide, sustainability within self-sufficiency so that no outside inputs are required. That’s real self-sufficiency, no tractors, no diesel power, no artificial pharmaceutical chemical fertilizers and positive Pantheistic environmentalism.
We have the positive example of the cow protection arts to hand and what follows are the effects of the cow protection arts. We actually have the positive proactive answer to all the agricultural problems of modernity. All we have to do is put the process into motion and follow the authentic path of Cow Protection along with all its arts. Thus, we have the answer.