Prabhupāda: It is a fact that they do not grow fruit trees because people will eat and will not work? Is that the policy? Somebody told me like that, that if there is enough fruit, then people will eat and they will not work.
Amogha: The fruit business would go down also. The fruit stands would not be able to sell much.
Prabhupāda: Just see. Bad policy.
Śrutakīrti: The government does that. On some farmers they will pay them not to grow to keep the price high.
Prabhupāda: Kill animals. Just see the policy. Instead of growing natural food, they will kill animal. Purposefully sinful life.
Śrutakīrti: But they still have to grow food for the animal. They're growing the food, but they give it to the animal.
Prabhupāda: Fruit?
Śrutakīrti: No, the food. They grow food for the animals, but then they kill the animal.
Prabhupāda: Just see. They can grow food both for the animals and for human being. Instead, they are simply growing food for the animals and killing them. Tā'ra madhye jihwā ati, lobhamoy sudurmati. You sing this before taking prasādam. The tongue is the greatest enemy and greedy. Tā'ra madhye jihwā ati, lobhamoy sudurmati. For the satisfaction of the tongue they are risking their own life and committing sinful life to suffer later on. Therefore the first-class man's first duty is to śamaḥ, controlling the mind. If one can control the mind, that "If I can live with grains, food, and milk, why shall I kill the ani...?" this is controlling the mind. They cannot control even this small thing. "Live and let live,"—this policy they do not follow. "Live and kill others." "Live at the cost of others."
Australian devotee 1: Śrīla Prabhupāda, it says in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that the weaker are the subsistence of the strong. So therefore human beings, they feel justified...
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the... but where is the human consciousness? A tiger cannot understand this. He will kill a lower animal. But you are not animal; you are man. You should have this discrimination, that "If I can live otherwise very nicely, why shall I kill animal?" That is humanity.
Australian devotee 1: But also, is not eating vegetables killing a living entity also?
Prabhupāda: No, it is not killing. If you take fruit, where is the killing? The tree is there. If you takes food grains, the food grains, after being produced, the tree dies automatically.
Śrutakīrti: Yeah. Wheat is harvested after it dies, not while it is alive.
Prabhupāda: Yes.