{"id":63229,"date":"2018-06-12T10:03:35","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T08:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=63229"},"modified":"2018-06-12T10:03:35","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T08:03:35","slug":"cow-chauvinism-the-case-for-more-kale-and-less-bull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=63229","title":{"rendered":"Cow Chauvinism: The Case for More Kale and Less Bull"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ABOVE PHOTO: New Vrindaban pepper harvest in the Garden of Seven Gates, a 6.5 acre parcel dedicated to growing organic veggies for the Deities, ashram residents and local householder families. Surplus produce is donated to congregate meal sites and food pantries in the Upper Ohio Valley region.<\/p>\n

Tapahpunja Dasa: Don\u2019t let the title fool you. Cow chauvinism is not a hyperbolic takedown of cavalier cows nor a criticism of the devotees who care for the cows. Nor is it a wrecking ball aimed at the institution\u2014ISKCON\u2014which connects the philosophical dots between human and bovine welfare. It is, however, a reminder that caring for cows must not be isolated from farming as expressed by Srila Prabhupada when he said, \u201cThe purpose of our Hare Krishna farms is to grow food.\u201d<\/p>\n

A nutshell rendition of New Vrindaban history\u2014as I personally witnessed it\u2014illustrates what happens when the interplay of cows, farming, preaching and fund raising goes wacky.<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, in a village called New Vrindaban, a group of young villagers experienced how service to the cows, coupled with worship of Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra, defined their daily routine and consecrated their love for Srila Prabhupada\u2019s first farm mission.<\/p>\n

With the cows and Deities in the center of the community\u2014it was a one minute walk from the temple to the barn\u2013the villagers saw fresh milk\u2014liquid religiosity\u2014travel from milk bucket to Deity kitchen to pujari room to altar and then back to the villagers as Maha Prasadam.<\/p>\n

They saw ox teams hauling in logs, horses and men mowing the hay, and the flourishing of vegetable, herb and flower gardens. As the village grew in size, many guests became attracted to the pure devotional atmosphere. Accommodations were needed. The villagers turned their attention towards expanding their preaching outreach. Prabhupada\u2019s Palace bloomed. Guest houses were erected, pastures were dozed into parking lots, and the villagers were asked to travel in pursuit of seeking donations.<\/p>\n

Life in the village was forever changed. The cows and oxen were moved out of site to a new barn. To the astonishment of the villagers, the herd size zoomed from eleven hand-milked heifers in 1974 to 150 machine-milked cows by 1982.<\/p>\n

The transformation of the village seemed logical because hundreds and thousands of pilgrims were exposed to Srila Prabhupada\u2019s teachings, but the runaway expansion eventually imploded, as do all things born of passion. There is a happy ending, Thanks to the guiding hand of greater ISKCON, the project called New Vrindaban was saved from the dustbin of history.<\/p>\n

That said, I will draw back my arched bow and take aim at an embarrassing enigma: We\u2019re eager to defend the thing we think is sustaining us\u2014cow revenue from donors\u2014but whimsical about where our food comes from. The rationalization that \u201cfood is just food\u201d as long as it\u2019s offered to Krishna is a death blow to farm community development. The origin of our food is the problem and that\u2019s why Srila Prabhupada once remarked, \u201cAt our Pennsylvania farm, they have solved the number one problem: food.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a perfect Vedic world, cow care and agriculture are natural partners. How could they not be? In fact, unless the cows are joyful, human society, guided by brahminical culture, cannot flourish. Cows make milk for finer brain tissue. Cows exude manure for renewable crop production. Cows are the cornerstone of ecological harmony. What\u2019s the problem?<\/p>\n

The problem is image. If we want to successfully reach out beyond the comfort zone of Hindu congregational support, if our North American neighbors are deemed a valued part of the preaching landscape, beating the drum for cows is like teaching a kid to ride a bike by starting him out on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Cows are not the lead card for beginners. We don\u2019t have the street cred. We are not a vegetarian version of the Amish, backed up by seven generations of successful farming.<\/p>\n

The Amish grow, store and sell most of their own vegetables and grains. We grow very little of what sustains us. The Amish economy is land-based. They boomerang their earning by spending their money mostly within the Amish community. Amish cow operations function due to a complex web of interdependent relationships within the Amish community. ISKCON\u2019s sizable cow operations are generally ultra-mechanized and require only a few highly specialized employees.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the point: ISKCON North American farm projects are not relevant to the needs of our Western peers. We are not mobilized to produce food from the hands of the devotees. We are mobilized to produce donations via the appeal of cow protection, Deity worship and the whirlwind cycle of festivals and Vaisnava holy days. Growing and distributing organic foods\u2014an occupation that could make us totally relevant to our neighbors\u2014is an underfunded, understaffed side show.<\/p>\n

As a small scale organic farmer who has exclusively farmed on ISKCON owned farmland for 25 years\u2014I emphatically understand why food production sputters along. Simply stated, farming\u2014especially organic farming\u2014is a weather dependent, labor intensive gamble. It\u2019s easier to pick up the phone, dial in your veggie order and help unload the truck when it rolls up to the temple doors.<\/p>\n

As Kali-yuga descends, however, into a morass of environmental, political and economic catastrophes, the \u201ccow protection minus food production\u201d formula will not prevail. Right now, food is deceptively cheap. Right now, management\u2019s ingrained partiality towards cows makes management sense. For the time being, there\u2019s no need to become food relevant to the housewives we shuffle past in Walmart\u2019s grocery section.<\/p>\n

On the eve of the 3rd Annual North American Farm Conference, the agenda is set. And you guessed it, it\u2019s mostly about cows, cow policy, cow standards, cow trophies, cow decorum, and cow katha. If for no other reason than pleasing Lord Krishna, let the band play on\u2026 but some barnyard common sense is in order.<\/p>\n

Pigs don\u2019t fly, horses don\u2019t grow feathers and most Westerners don\u2019t give a hoot about whether or not a few cows on a few Hare Krishna farms are protected by a few devotees who, by and large, are supported by a few Hindu donors. I can make that assertion because I\u2019ve mentored a few hundred young farm apprentices, most of whom arrive as kale-chomping vegetarians, eager to learn how to grow kale, cook kale, offer kale and market kale.<\/p>\n

For these farm bhaktas, the logic and urgency of protecting cows will remain a quaint artifact of Hindu mythology until the reason we love cows chimes with the reason we grow what we eat and eat what we grow. They want to see magic, just as I did as a New Vrindaban bhakta in 1974. They want to see bhoga transformed into prasadam, not as passive observers, but as contributors in a chain of spiritual connections from their soiled hands to the cook to the pujari.<\/p>\n

A closing prediction is in order: As Kali-yuga tightens its stranglehold\u2014no rain means no grain\u2014the tawny issue of food security will redefine our heady, brahminical misconceptions about how the second half of Srila Prabhupada\u2019s movement will arise. Shaven headed brahmanas, be advised! Growing food is the incubator for varnashrama. Varnashrama, as it turns out, will not be voted on at the annual Mayapura meetings. Varnashrama will be driven by blue collar locals and kale-eating kids seeking shelter from the storm. And just as Srila Prabhupada predicted, the place of action will be our food producing farms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Hare Tapahpunja Dasa: Once upon a time, in a village called New Vrindaban, a group of young villagers experienced how service to the cows, coupled with worship of Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra, defined their daily routine and consecrated their love for Srila Prabhupada\u2019s first farm mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recent-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63231,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63229\/revisions\/63231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}