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.
Allen Ginsberg: Four acres, you think?
Prabhupāda: Four acres.
Allen Ginsberg: Maybe.
Prabhupāda: That I am instructing Kīrtanānanda, to show this example in New Vrindaban.
Allen Ginsberg: Are you going to be able to do it on four acres?
Kīrtanānanda: I hope so.
Prabhupāda: Is it very difficult? Four acres of land per head?
Allen Ginsberg: I just this last night was in Minnesota, which is flat, very fertile, very rich land.
Prabhupāda: Where it is? Which province?
Allen Ginsberg: Minnesota. Midwest. Further west. Talking with a poet who also is a fellow sādhana, whose family is from that area for many generations, whose brother has a thousand acres of land, and he himself has 160 acres of land. And as farming is done now in America, apparently 160 acres is not enough to support a farm economically because farming is done now in such large scale with machines.
Kīrtanānanda: You can use those machines if you want. If you want to live in the so-called American style, that is so. But if you're willing to adopt the Vedic way of minimizing the material needs in order to pursue Kṛṣṇa consciousness, what does one need? He needs sufficient food to keep the body healthy and a place to lay down. So four acres is plenty.
Allen Ginsberg: Where do you get the... How do you feed the cow, or would you?
Kīrtanānanda: On four acres you can do it.
