Excessive Breeding and Cow Abuse

in New Vrindaban

Chand Prasad, Ph.D.

Introduction

It is difficult to obtain unbiased and complete information on the state of agriculture within the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).  Although farming activity is largely observable and potentially verifiable, ISKCON is a sprawling, multinational organization that has not systematically documented its agricultural sector.  ISKCON leaders have vested interests in exaggerating the successes of their endeavors, especially as it relates to cow protection.

Henry Doktorski cuts through the bullshit in Chapter 53 of Guns, Gold and God Volume 5 (GGG5).  Previous studies provide disappointingly little information on farming activities in New Vrindaban, an influential Hare Krishna community located in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.  In contrast, Doktorski manages to weave together a refreshingly coherent and detailed picture of New Vrindaban’s agricultural economy, and how and why it changed over time.  

Excessive Breeding 

Kirtanananda dreamed of having the largest dairy farm in West Virginia, and for a time, that goal “clearly seemed to have become a reality” (GGG5 p. 137 Kindle Edition)—in 1991 the livestock herd reportedly expanded to 500 head (including cows, oxen, and bulls), up from 400 in 1983 (Table 1).



However, Kirtanananda’s dream could not be sustained in the face of binding financial and land constraints, legal expenses, and his insane obsession with building a magnificent Palace of Gold (and a few years later an enormous granite temple in South-Indian Dravidian style estimated to take fifteen years to construct).  Kirtanananda decreed that everything be sacrificed to build Prabhupada's Palace of Gold and then New Vrindaban’s proposed Temple of Understanding, a hugely expensive monument that Srila Prabhupada may not even have wanted.  Although Srila Prabhupada spoke of building 7 temples at New Vrindaban, it is not likely he would have approved a 50-million dollar edifice.

Carrying Capacity

New Vrindaban does not have the internal resources to maintain a large livestock herd.  Based on New Vrindaban’s climate and soil, each cow requires about 6-10 acres of arable land, according to Madhava Gosh (ISCOWP News, 1998, Issue 1).  The land requirement for a given herd, i.e. the carrying capacity, varies due to differences in local growing conditions, feeding practices, and the specific cow breed, e.g. Holstein versus Jersey cows.  Carrying capacity falls sharply when the soil is not properly maintained.  To avoid dramatic reductions in carrying capacity, lime must be applied to New Vrindaban’s naturally acidic soil, and pastureland must be rotated to avoid overgrazing.  By way of comparison, the carrying capacity for Gita-nagari, located in Port Royal, Pennsylvania, is about 3 acres per cow, based on correspondence with Balabhadra dasa and Chaya devi dasi.    

Although the exact extent of New Vrindaban’s carrying capacity may be debatable, the community’s farm managers did not even come close to properly incorporating land or even labor constraints into their decision-making.  Please note the size of the agricultural labor force is also uncertain, as devotee farm hands can come and go.  A great deal of New Vrindaban is forest, and not all of the non-forested land is arable.  “…much of the land is too steep to be used even for grazing.” (Madhava Gosh, ISCOWP News, 1998, Issue 1)  “Despite the community’s vast acreage, there was apparently not enough man power nor arable farmland to grow adequate feed for the animals. The goshala was not self sufficient; it could not survive without outside funding.” (GGG5, p. 137 Kindle Edition)

In a letter to Kirtanananda dated June 24, 1969, Srila Prabhupada had requested “...that you try and keep as many cows as possible in your New Vrindaban” (GGG5, p. 135, Kindle Edition).  However the key phrase is, “as possible.”  The temple leaders must take responsibility for calculating what is possible.  Krishna already provided—He provided humans with a brain and higher intelligence, and those blessings should not be thrown away.  ISKCON was intended to be decentralized with local temples wielding considerable autonomy.  Each temple should make practical decisions based on an understanding of local conditions and constraints.  

Madhava Gosh das explains that “misunderstanding of breeding topics is very much at the foundation of cow neglect, abuse, and malnutrition.”  Srila Prabhupada indicated that one cow, on one acre is viable.  This figure is true in a tropical area with good rainfall and fertile, well-maintained soils.  But in West Virginia, a cow needs a lot more than just 1 acre.  Moreover, in temperate climates, it is necessary to grow forage and store it for the winter when the cows cannot graze (ISCOWP News, 1998, Issue 1).  Since it is difficult to anticipate the carrying capacity with complete accuracy, Vaishnava communities should be cautious about expanding the size of their cow herd.  According to Madhava Smullen, “…large [cow] herds have never been successful in ISKCON...” (ISKCON Alachua Begins Work on New Master Plan, Dec 19, 2013).     

  
Breed for Draft Power, Not Milk

The underlying principle of cow protection is to employ bulls to work the land, implying that cows are bred only to the point where the bovine population meets the demand for draft power, rather than the demand for the byproducts, e.g., milk.  In sharp contrast, raising cows for the purpose of producing milk is an egregious error—the cow will not produce milk unless it has calves, and since half will be male, the result is an excess livestock population that is costly to support.  Farming practices that do not engage the bulls essentially condemn them to the slaughterhouse, since they will have no economic value other than their meat.  After calibrating the growth of the herd to the demand for draft power, the byproducts such as manure, urine, and milk can be put to good use.  The International Society for Cow Protection has repeatedly stressed this key point.  (For further reading, please see Cow Protection Book 1, published by ISKCON Ministry of Cow Protection and Agriculture, In Cooperation with the International Society for Cow Protection, Inc. http://iscowp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/cow_protection_book.pdf)

Economics of Cruelty

Kirtanananda rejected the above-referenced principles of cow protection.  He bred cows for milk rather than draft power to create a large dairy farm.  “At New Vrindaban, the tractors and other machinery were never abandoned and by 1978, if not sooner, the ox and horse programs were disbanded.” (GGG5, p. 132 Kindle Edition)  Devotee (ahimsa) operations cannot compete with non-ahimsa commercial dairies.  Commercial dairies can afford to sell their milk at low prices because they sell their calves and older cows to meat producers.  Farms that protect their cows and bulls must charge much higher prices than suppliers of non-ahimsa milk.    

Kirtanananda’s “solved” the problem of an excessive livestock herd by treating cows with more cruelty than commercial livestock enterprises.  “…Even the karmis that keep cows for slaughter take better care of them than New Vrindaban.” (GGG3 p. 257 Kindle Edition)  In the late 1970s and early 1980s, cows lived in filthy barns with huge worms.  Many got sick and some even starved or froze to death.  Kirtanananda refused to allocate money for adequate animal feed, saying that the Palace came first.  Old unproductive cows were left to die in isolated pastures. “Kirtanananda was charged with cruelty to animals and had to spend some time in the Marshall County jail.” (GGG5 p. 136 Kindle Edition)  Cows got their heads stuck in a broken feeder stall, and were severely mangled while trying to release themselves—they were left to die over a period of 2-3 days (GGG3 p. 256 Kindle Edition).  In contrast, industrialized meat producers attempt to kill their cows as quickly as possible because they must slaughter large volumes of animals to stay profitable.  

Final Remarks

Kirtanananda essentially built a construction industry at the expense of New Vrindaban’s agricultural sector.  He forced out devotees who were philosophically and practically committed to self-sufficiency.  Many of the remaining devotees who could have been engaged in farming were sent out on exhausting fundraising missions and/or forced into slavery to build the Palace of Gold.  

With its adoption of labor-saving machinery for construction and agriculture, the New Vrindaban cult followed an economic path similar to the typical industrialization programs of middle and high-income countries throughout the world.  Indeed, the standard paradigm of economic development recognizes that cities are only possible if people are transferred out of farming into manufacturing and services.    

Given that free will is sacrosanct, people are entitled to disagree with and criticize Srila Prabhupada’s philosophy.  However, intellectual integrity demands we acknowledge that the economic model Kirtanananda imposed on New Vrindaban is arguably inferior to Srila Prabhupada’s prescriptions.  ISKCON wasted valuable opportunities to implement earth-honoring economic systems that could have provided important lessons for others.
Hare Krishna.