Recently a devotee told me that most people he knows think that cows are content to be anywhere as long as they are fed. This is a complete and utter myth and it is against what nature intended as well as against the instructions of the Vedas.
Lord Krishna has created a natural system of living with cows and the land. What we have done is changed that into concrete stall feeding lots. I visit the goshala every morning and the local Bengali visitors often frown and comment about the concrete floor full of cow dung which does not do well for our reputation as cow protectors. Once a man Mr. Halder from Malda gave me a detailed description of how he was looking after cows in his village, he mentioned that a concrete structure was not ideal for their health and how the hard and slippery surface adversely affects the cow hoof and legs, comparing it to a man always standing on his toes. Many others complained about the thousands of flies around, and the hundreds of dead ones in the cow feed.
Cows are meant to be in a natural environment, not in a place where they have to be fed IF someone remembers to feed, better they have access to as much grass as they need. The cost of feeding grains and nutrition less dry hay is much more than allowing the cows to feed on the abundance of free grass within the ISKCON Mayapur campus and surrounds. The locals are often seen grazing their cows here and there because it is the most economic way of feeding cows AND the most healthy.
Interestingly modern research has discovered that this natural act of grazing is very good for the environment whereas previously it was thought that grazing cows caused desertification. Confirmed research now shows that cows can turn a desert into an oasis! Who is protecting whom? Govinda Das a visiting devotee from South India told me that when they introduced cows to graze in the mango groves the mangoes became bigger and amazingly sweeter after just two years. On top of this cows give us life sustaining milk.
So are we doing our duty of cow protection by keeping them locked up all the time, without full access to grazing? The answer is NO, another reason is that when cow dung and urine fall randomly and directly on large open pastures they have the perfect fertilizing effect, however in overcrowded feedlots the cow dung and urine concentrates contaminate ground water.This system is a variant of factory farming;
Mishak Henner’s Apocalyptic Photos Show How Factory Farming is Destroying The American Landscape
The images, discovered by Henner while researching satellite photographs of oil fields, look more like post-apocalyptic wastelands than acreage in America’s heartland.
““While I was working on that series I was looking intensely at the American landscape, and that’s when I came across these really strange-looking structures, like a big lagoon, or all these dots that look like microbes, We have factory farming in England, but we don’t have it on that scale. I was just absolutely blown away.”
The aerial shots of factory farming feedlots are open source satellite imagery, so Henner doesn’t have to worry about the legal risk of publishing them. In recent years, the commercial agriculture industry has sought to hide its disgraceful practices from the public’s view, and journalists found photographing feedlots have faced arrest and criminal charges under bogus “Agriculture Gag” laws. It’s not hard to see why they’d rather no one know what they’re up to.
“Massive waste lagoons, which waft up dangerous hydrogen sulfide fumes and can contaminate groundwater with nitrates and antibiotics, first resemble open, infected wounds, the land on which the feedlots sit is totally barren, brown and dry. Brightly colored waste from the poor animals housed there gives off an alien glow against the neutral backdrop of dying land.
4.1.0.28 ATHARVA VEDA 12-4-28 Stall feeding is harmful
घरमगौकोबंधकरमतरखो
योअ”याऋचउप%ुयाथगो&वचीचरत्।आयु *चत”यभूतंचदेवाव*चितह./डताः।।अथव12-4-28
4.1.0.9 AV12-4-9 Cow Dung and Urine गोबरगोमू 2यद”याःप4पूलनंशकृ
7ासीसम”यत।ततोऽप:पंजायतेत”माद<ये&यदेनसः।।अथव 12-4-9
Throwing away in to waste the Cow Dung and Cow Urine disfigures the society.
http://servecows.com/goshala-information/belgaum-goshala/
Now it will be interesting to note that Lord Krishna, Sri Govinda, Supreme Protector of the cows Personally took nine hundred thousand cows out for grazing and He would rotate them through the twelve forests of Vrindavan, this is the same cow protection and symbiotic earth program that scientists are discovering now through an ascending process of receiving knowledge.
Lecture-Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.9.3 Melbourne, April 5, 1972
“Cow protection means just like Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is tending the cows. He is going, taking the cows personally from His royal palace going to the forest whole day, working there. Is it not, cowherds boy? And taken some little fruit, mother, whatever mother has given. They are playing that. So this is cow protection, not that “Somebody will give money and we shall keep some third class cows and feed there and become cow protector.” We must tend the cows very nicely so that they give us sufficient milk. And with that milk we shall live. “No, because we are giving protection to cow, you send money for the cows and the cow protectors, and earn money there and give us money. We shall eat nicely and sleep.”As soon as this practice is going on, then next will be: “Give me some LSD, give me something else.” This will go on. We don’t want that.”
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