Minister of Agri-culture Has a Blog

Here is a picture from Balabhadra’s blog Life With the Cows and Land . He is chronicling Krishna Conscious life on the farm. Balabhadra is the ISKCON Minister of Agriculture, though this is his personal blog.

“In the Vedic times cows were not breed for milk production. Cows were breed for producing Bulls so that the activities of Agri-culture could be accomplished.

"The second reason was for cow dung. Cow dung is called farmers gold as it is such a high quality fertilizer and soil conditioner. It is also used in some Ayurvedic medicines. Dried cow dung is also used for a cooking fuel and fresh cow dung can be used in the production of methane gas.

"The third reason was for cow urine, which is valuable for Ayurvedic medicines as well as Agri-cultural applications.

"The fourth reason was for milk, which was considered as a bye product of breeding for the production of bulls.”

Balabhadra is growing and delivering vegetables to NV devotees. We buy from him, something that would have been inconceivable a couple of years ago. We used to grow and sell at a local Framer’s Market in Wheeling. The only tomatoes we have growing now are volunteers in a flowerbed. We have gone from being producers to being consumers. Not a pleasant feeling, though mitigated knowing Balabhadra is growing them. Maybe next year.

Poll question: Is Balabhadra an anachronism clinging to cow protection just because some book says it is important? Vote with your money – buy milk where the cow will be slaughtered and let it go at that if you think he is out of touch; purify that milk by supporting cow protection programs and/or animal rights organizations if he isn’t. Krishna will tally the results, and He has a built in error checking system.

“Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 1 Chapter 16 Verse 18

The Personality of Religious Principles, Dharma, was wondering about in the form of a bull. And he met the personality of earth in the form of a cow who appeared to grieve like a mother who had lost her child. She had tears in her eyes, and the beauty of her body was lost. Thus Dharma questioned the earth as follows.

PURPORT

The bull is the emblem of the moral principle, and the cow is the representative of the earth. When the bull and the cow are in a joyful mood, it is to be understood that the people of the world are also in a joyful mood. The reason is that the bull helps production of grains in the agricultural field, and the cow delivers milk, the miracle of aggregate food values. The human society therefore, maintains these two important animals very carefully so that they can wander everywhere in cheerfulness. But at the present moment in this age of Kali both the bull and the cow are now being slaughtered and eaten up as foodstuff by a class of men who do not know the brahminical culture..."