Farms (Conversations 1969 - 1975)

Expressions researched:
farms |farm |farming |farmland |farmhouse

Conversations and Morning Walks

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

From economic point of view, if one man has got a cow and four acres of land, he has no economic problem. That we want to start.

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 11, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Prabhupāda: You remain with us at least for three months and you'll forget your... You remain with us for three months. (laughter) With your associates, you just come to Vṛndāvana. We shall live together.

Allen Ginsberg: You have a farm now?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Allen Ginsberg: You have a farm now?

Prabhupāda: Yes. And you'll forget everything. You'll be fully Kṛṣṇa conscious.

Allen Ginsberg: We have a farm also now in upstate New York. There we have vegetarian table also in the farm. We have a cow, goats. But...

Prabhupāda: From economic point of view, if one man has got a cow and four acres of land, he has no economic problem. That we want to start. He can independently live any part of the world. Simply he must (have) one cow and four acres of land. Let the people be divided with four acres of land and a cow, there will be no economic question. All the factories will be closed.

Farming, agriculture, that is nice. There is a proverb: agriculture is the noblest profession.

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 11, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Allen Ginsberg: See we are interested in this problem of minimizing.

Prabhupāda: So let us cooperate.

Allen Ginsberg: And doing organic farming and minimizing the effort and also the material demands.

Kīrtanānanda: You can grow sufficient vegetables on a fraction of an acre.

Allen Ginsberg: Yes. We had a big vegetable garden this year, too. I've been doing farming... Peter has been doing a great deal of farming.

Hayagrīva: How are you tilling your land?

Guest: We have a friend who comes out with a plow.

Allen Ginsberg: You're doing it by hand?

Kīrtanānanda: We just got a horse.

Hayagrīva: We just got a horse. We had bad experience with a rotary tiller. We got rid of it.

Kīrtanānanda: West Virginia. We gave it away.

Allen Ginsberg: So we're also going through a coovy(?) āśrama for poets. A little farm for poets.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Farming, agriculture, that is nice. There is a proverb: agriculture is the noblest profession. Is it not said? Agriculture is noblest, and Kṛṣṇa was farmer, His father.

Allen Ginsberg: The cow.

Prabhupāda: Cow, yes. And in Vedic literature you'll find, a man is... Richness of a man is estimated by the possession of grains and cows. Dhanyena dhanavān. If he has got sufficient quantity grain, then he's to be... Formerly, even still in India, when a daughter is offered to a family, they will go and see how many morais(?) there are. Grain stock. If he sees that he has five, six, big, big grain stock, then he can... "Oh, this is nice house." You see? "They can feed." So in India still, the arrangement is that every family has got at least two years grain in stock. You see? And cow at least one dozen. No economic problem. And actually, that is the fact. You keep cows and have sufficient grains, whole economic problem solved. Eating. And sleeping, you can take some wood and four pillars.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

If you take the all village people, you can produce enough food for them in this village. So much land is lying there.

Room Conversation With David Lawrence -- July 12, 1973, London:

David Lawrence: It was interesting to see a recent television program in this country...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

David Lawrence: ...on farming, and it was talking about the so-called modern methods of farming which have destroyed the earth in this country, really, in great areas. And it showed an Englishman and his son who believe in the old methods with cows on the land. And he is not only doing better economically, but he was so happy, the two men were so happy.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

David Lawrence: They were just working with nature, not against nature.

Prabhupāda: Just like so much field is there. You, if you take the all village people, you can produce enough food for them in this village. So much land is lying there. Simply you keep cows and till ground, get your food grains. Enough. And if you take the whole planet as it is, you can feed ten times population. There is so much prospect. Australia, Africa. So much vacant land. You can produce enough quantity of milk and food grains.