Future of dairy farming - managing unproductive cows

Hi all
moderators please delete this thread if it is offensive/political/irrelevant but please read it fully before deleting its a true concern
implications of ban on cow slaughtering
lets forget religious sentiments

Let me give rough idea about indian dairy farmers

Most dairy farmers are "farmers"with 1-2 cows @ home
most farmers are BPL with difficulty in having good meals everyday

now what will happen?

what will happen to cows once it becomes old/nonproductive ?
what will happen to Ox/bulls/male calves?

a farmer who cannot feed his own children and has difficulties in spending for children education should pour in resources to maintain nonproductive cows/bulls/oxen
will it make india prosper?
should the cows/ox/bulld be abandoned to wander freely?(in three four years there will be crores of them wandering n roads

Milk price will have to be extremely high so as to maintain those old/nonproductive/bulls/

If government assures adoption of nonproductive cows then only its ok to have Stringent laws.

prem khannae(nick name)
(praveen kumar )

Your Posting is need of the Hour Bhayya.

If Govt. Provides Shelter to Non Productive Cows, those will go to Slaughter Houses. It is not Practicable. Instead Got. should Provide Financial Assistance and Impart Technical Assistance to make them Productive and Provide Marketing of Milk at Supporting Price. The Milk price to the Farmers and Producers are far lesser than that of any Product in the Market. 1 Liter Water Bottle costs Rs.20 while the Farmer/Producer is getting Rs.25 to Rs.30 Per Liter Milk. Is it Justiable.

Govts. are spending lot of Money wasted on the Non Productive purposes. It is obvious and tend to Laziness to the Valuable Manpower. Instead of making Subsidies by wasting Money on FOOD/ FOOD for WORK/Labour Assurance Schemes etc. Instead of that Govts. should rethink and Provide Employments on self helps through Trainings etc. as is being done in China. Due to this attitude of China , China is ruling the entire world through their utilisation of abundant resources of manpower.

I am in hope that our Forun make an effort by maving Govts. on the above aspect.

MANNE.SN,
for Vasudha Green Farms,
vasudhagreenfarms@gmail.com,
Ph:09133498366.

I agree with this posting. First thing that is done in India is “Ban”. That is not the solution for everything. I own a dairy farm and without selling some of the cattle for slaughtering, i can not run my farm. The questions asked in the above post are valid - What should i do with male calves , non-yielding cattle, disease prone cattle ?

Already it is getting very difficult to run the Dairy farm with the issues of Labor (unavailability and high cost) and low selling price of milk. If slaughtering is banned, it will be another issue to handle.

While banning, govt should also provide alternative. Otherwise, govt is forcing us to shutdown the Dairy farms.

It looks like the govt. decison is based only on a religious sentiment. There is nothing to appreciate about this decision as it is not based on socio-economic conditions.

Basic question to the govt and the people who have taken such decisions is that how many of these people have cows and they love them, adore them and care them personally? both young cows and old cows?

If the farmer has goats and cows he has grown, it is very difficult for him to cull/kill them as both are cared by him. He loves both of them. These are given by almighty for his good and living. He is the master to take decisions on these and not the govt.

Like cows, ox/bulls/male animal is also required for reproduction. We can not say that bulls can be killed. All of then have a useful life and use given by the “Life Giver”/“Creator”. Therefore Male/female animals I consider as equal in the right to live.
( animal Equality as in Humans!!!)

The owner of these animals ( read farmer in this case) is the supreme person with right to reproduce/grow/fatten/sell/buy/cull and not the Govt. This applies to all animals, birds - both male and female.

However, merciless culling of infant animals or pregnant animals has to be regulated. If a particular species is endangered, there is a point in regulating the culling/killing and hunting of such birds and animals as prevailing now.

Definitely, it will affect existing dairy owners and prospective people entering this business. Old animals will have no buyers. No meat for those who consume animal meat. No leather for leather industry… This law will have multiple affects.

Govt. adapting cows…Joke and laugh!!!. Imagine Vet. Docs are ferried through helicopters and ambulances to treat the sick and dying cows!!! Ambulances are used to ferry these animals for treatment to the Vet hospitals!!! We (govt.) are becoming a laughing stock for the whole world.

Male calves would not be cows…would they? They are looking to ensure Gau Mata is not killed, isn’t it? Bulls & buffaloes etc are not covered…or are they?

its “beef ban” not cow ban
beef= cow, bull, bufallo

Beef can be from Cow, bull or Buffallo.

The question concerning the farmers is what they will do with the non productive/aged cow? Not the males… Has the govt. come out with any solution around this?

Bhayya Ganapathib and Sunilkon

I am strongly Objecting on your Points. The reason behind it is Cow and Bull are serving the Mankind in their entire life time by doing Physical service as well as Feeding to from Kids to Old. Even after their death also it is giving Valuable Skin as Leather, Bone to Fertiliser and in several Industrial inputs, their Horns to several Ornaments etc. Can’t yo give Value for them. Most Important thing is that even at their Old ages Cow/Bull Dung Cow/Bull Urine contains 5000 Crores of Useful Bacteria embedded in it. This itself is enough to feed them until their Natural Death.It may not be out fact to say that what we are Purchasing spending 1000s of rupees for Organic Fertilisers are being Mfgd. with above ingredients. I am straightly making One question that when our Father and and Mother are not in working stage at their Old age can we sell them to (Slaughter Houses {Luckily so far are not there}). We cannot say there may be a Day in future. But our organs are not useful for any Purpose as that of the Cow and Bull. Sorry for making a Harsh Comment.Kindly excuse if I am wrong.
MANNE SN,
for Vasudha Green Farms,
9133498366,
vasudhagreenfarms@gmail.com

Dear Manne,

Please let me know how many cattle you own and how long you have been in dairy farming. and please let me know what you do with male calf and non-yielding cattle.

Let me put across my problem and suggest me a solution that you have implemented . i have a dairy farm (running for last 3.5 years) with 35 dairy animals. my shed capacity is for 40 cattle. If i had not given out male calf & non-yielding cattle, by now i should have built another shed of the same size to house all animals. i can not afford to build sheds every few years. What do you suggest ?

thanks,
-Ganapathi Bhat

Thank you Bhayya,
I am very sorry if I hurt you.What I have made a Posting o Humanitarian Grounds. Earlier if Cow borns the Farmers are thinking that the Cow calf is not Economical and everybody wants to have Bull Calf for Farming operations of Ongole Breed of Bull. This situation was encashed by Australians and have Purchased Ongole Cows. Now that breed is remote in India. They (Australians) at one stage have tried to have Patient on Ongole Breed of Cows and Bulls. You may aware that almost all Organic Fertilisers, Pesticides, Fungicides are being supplied to the Globe by Australians. It is nothing but the ingredients of our Ongole Cow and Bull. Now we have realised the Importance of that breed on the initiation of Palekarji.

If we make an effort nothing is impossible in this world. on taking inspiration of above simple Point you can do miracles by making Cow and Bull Dung and Urine based products or otherwise you can send them to GOSHALAS instead of selling them to Slaughterhouses. A Community is eating away the cow and Bull meat (Beef) on the eversion on Hindus and not to enjoy the tat of Beef. No doubt it is a fact. It is not correct to compare cow slaughtering with Goat slaughtering. Cow is the Mother of Indian Culture not allone Hindus but all Religions,Casts.
This is my personal Opinion and not to let down anybody.
MANNE SN,
for Vasudha Green Farms,
9133498366,
vasudhagreenfarms@gmail.com

dear Manne saab
you have not answered ganapati’s questions

regarding sending cows to goshala :sunglasses: how many goshalas are there?
nearest goshala to my place is around 300 kms :slight_smile: ::)
thinking of economics after few years of cow slaughter ban there will be crores of non productive cows so what are you going to do with all that urine and cowdung? :astonished: :wink: :stuck_out_tongue:

To add few points to you…
You are mentioning only housing, what about the animals which becomes bed ridden(they cant even stand). I have seen couple of cases. Farmers who had affinity with animals(farmers don’t want to sell it to slaughter house), when they become too old they just sleep. due to unhygienic condition they start getting sores and maggots in the wounds. This is terrible.

Housing + atleast 2K of expenses is needed to feed and maintain these unproductive animals. If govt gives subsidy then farmer can maintain these animals.

If killing cow is sin, then killing sheep,hens,pigs are equally sin.

When I sell my cattle I don’t sell it slaughter house, if my buyer sells it to slaughter house, it is beyond my control.

bad news for non vegetarians is that after beef ban, mutton and chicken prices will go up. In Maharashtra killing of cow is banned, not eating. Beef is getting supplied to Mumbai from all other states.

Thank you Sir khannae and Sri Sirs,

It is basing on the Humanitarian consideration.Initially itself I have expressed my view that Govt. should extend support to maintain such Animals . If Govt. Maintains definitely will get Revenue out of its Dung and Urine. Our Brother Mr.khannae expressed doubt about Large quantity of urine and cowdung. Bhayya do you know how much material in the name of Organic Manures and Plant Protection material is being dumped from other countries. Can’t we supplement by making little efforts by moving Govts.

Any way this Post is being Prolonged . Let us close this Topic because it is basing on the individual’s will. Pl. Stop this TOPIC.

We are debating on a crisis, I don’t see a reason to stop this topic. you are expressing your views and others expressing theirs.
Let us keep religious sentiments aside for a while and talk about the practical implications if beef is banned.

The Govt will happily provide subsidy or monitory benefits and will increase the milk rate 2 or 4/-. People must be ready for this.

One cow can generate a dung worth of 450/- per month and expense to maintain the animal is 2000/-.

My neighboring farmers buy bullocks just before monsoon and use the animals for farming for a month or so then immediately they are selling. There are so much reasons to do this. There is no fodder to own the animals throughout the year. Paddy crop is reducing dry grass has become so expensive. so on…

There is one solution to have only female calves is that inception female embryos.
fao.org/docrep/004/t0117e/t0117e02.htm

again this is expensive technology in India. A farmer gets insemination for 100 or 200 govt provides free semen. If there is male calf he sells it for 1000/- for a slaughter house. Why would he chose Embryo transfer?

Come on Manne saab, let us face the brutal reality. We both know its a harsh world,no point pondering around religious sentiments.

I am not a dairy farmer, but even then putting myself in their shoes I feel sorry for these folks. Seeing the animal they grew die in front of them is lot worse than the animal slaughtered elsewhere, dont you agree?

If they were to make money, every dairy farmer will have a inhouse slaughter house by now then, isnt it?Every individual has pressure points, beyond which when things get out, one is pushed to make choices one ideally dont want to. This is the very way of nature and living.

I do appreciate your thought of producing organic manure using the dung and stuff of aged animals, but would it be really sufficient enough to recover the costs incurred to maintain these animals? I doubt.

Regards,

Saravana

First of all, I don’t agree that state should have the right to force the citizen to keep an unproductive animal.

That said, there is actually a way to do it, if the govt. wishes to build a huge goshala infrastructure with public money. Not only the cow, they can send any unproductive animal to it. The PETA people would be happy to hear of it, and the average vegetarian too, who is against animal slaughter, for any reason whatsoever.

The govt. can declare entire India, an organic state. Ban production of chemical fertilizer and divert the chemical fertilizer subsidy to building a goshala infrastructure coupled with organic fertilizer manufacturing.

As chemical fertilizer would not be available and the organic manure fertilizer would be in demand and its price would go up, hopefully, beyond its cost of production.

But this is a very risky gamble for the govt to make and the entire IIT/IIM/Harvard educated babudom would be against it, in addition to the entire fertilizer lobby.

Another permutation to this would be to withdraw subsidies from chemical fertilizer and provide the same on organic fertilizer, in addition to imposing taxes on chemical fertilizer to the extent that organic fertilizer becomes renumerative enough to keep animals for their manure & urine only.

Then Large corporates can buy dung & urine like the Amul co-op buys Milk. You see subsidy cannot be given to small farmers without corruption, to my way of thinking.

The Mughal Empire and Cow
Babar in his will ‘Tuzuk-e- Babari’ tells his son that, “Humayun should respect the sentiments of the Hindus and hence should not allow the cow to be sacrificed or killed anywhere in the Mughal Empire. The day any Mughal emperor ignores this will, the people of India will reject him”.

Many other Mughal Emperors like Akbar, Jahangir, Ahmad Shah had banned Cow Slaughter in their kingdom. Hyder Ali and Tippu Sultan who ruled the Mysore State in the present day Karnataka had made cow slaughter and beef eating a punishable offence and the crime would be punished by cutting off the hands of the person who committed the crime!

Today in India we have over 36000 slaughterhouses! How did this massive turn around take place? But before that…

Science behind the Sacred Cow of Hindu Civilization
To understand that first we need to get back to the importance of cow in the ancient Hindu civilization of India. Cows are the most sacred animals to the Hindus and this is not without any reason. In fact the very word Cow in English is derived from the Sanskrit word Gau for Cow. So why are the cows so sacred to the Hindu civilization?

Hindus believe that all Gods and Goddesses live inside a Cow

Cattle – The backbone of Indian Agriculture
One of the most important reasons is that cows have been the backbones of Indian families and the Indian agricultural system ever since the dawn of this ancient Hindu civilization. Apart from the extensively used Cow’s milk which the ancient Indians used to collect only after the calf has had its share, the most important use of Cows was in Agriculture. Without Cow the Indian agriculture in those days was as good as gone, and this was one of the prime reasons why Hindus being nature worshipers also worshiped Cow. Cow’s urine was a natural pesticide, cow manure was a natural fertilizer. Cattle in ancient India had ensured that Indian civilization did not need any artificial pesticides or artificial fertilizers, both of which are extremely harmful for the farm soil and degrade soil quality over time.

Cows had their own shelters called Gaushalas (large places where the cows lived) which were many a times larger than the homes where people lived. There used to be people exclusively to look after the well being of the cows here and many a times they used to be the cow owners themselves who used to clean the Gaushalas everyday, feed the cows, take care of their health and so on . Every single festival of harvest had cow worship, house warming ceremonies had the ritual of taking the cow inside the house first and then pray to it to make the house prosper and flood with food grains, milk and butter.

Cows being fed at a Gaushala

Note that those were the days when food was grown in a healthy natural process. There was no industrial revolution, no artificial fertilizers, no chemical pesticides and insecticides. The entire Indian agriculture was based on the nature’s best fertilizer – Cow dung, and one of the nature’s best pesticide – Cow’s urine (along with the neem based solutions) were used extensively in the agriculture. Buttermilk again which is a derivative of Cow’s milk was used as an effective fungicide and weedicide.

And not without any reason, the Indian agriculture in those days was extremely productive thanks to the cow products. Farmers were happy, crops came on time, yield was high, prices were low for food crops, kingdoms even used to export their agricultural output, granaries were always filled, milk was abundantly available and so were its derivatives like Butter, Ghee etc which formed an important part of the Indian diet. Every religious institution, big farms, farmers, diary owners all had thousands of cows – the cows which had made the Indian economy rich and healthy.

Even today in African deserts were growing food is difficult and whatever grows must give a rich yield for people to have adequate food, fermented cow’s urine is used as a natural pesticide. Compare this with farmers today who spend thousands and thousands of rupees on artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides, which not only make the food unhealthy, but also make the soil unproductive over time.

Cow slaughter and slaughterhouses are banned even today in Nepal. In India, very few are aware of the fact that Article 48 of the Indian Constitution (Directive Principles of State Policy) says clearly that the government must protect the cow, its progeny and other cattle used in agriculture, not just because the cows are sacred to Hindus but because Cows have been the backbone of Agriculture and milk production in this country ever since the dawn of civilization. To millions of poor families in India, even today Cow’s milk is the only source of nutrient to their kids and babies.

In India states like Jammu & Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka etc have already banned Cow slaughter (Karnataka being a very recent addition). Cuba banned cow slaughter after its people virtually ate up all the cattle leading to a scarcity of diary products. Even Iran has banned Cow slaughter and note that it was at the request of a non-Muslim – Seth Merwanji Framji Panday that Iran – a muslim dominated nation had banned cow slaughter. Now compare this with India today where in the name of secularism we are killing our agriculture and degrading the farm soil.

British Rule and Slaughterhouses
Both Mahathma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru had declared before Independence that they would ban Cow slaughter in India after Independence. Obviously they didnt impose it. Why? Thanks to Robert Clive who had converted the Indian Muslims into believing that beef eating was their religious right. Cow slaughter had become a vote bank issue. How? Read below.

Robert Clive – the so called Founder of the British Empire in India who was twice the Governor of Bengal too – on entering India was astonished and amazed to see the success of the agricultural system here. He went on researching the reasons for the success of the Indian agriculture and discovered the root – The Holy Indian Cow. The entire hindu life style revolved around this animal, not just religiously, but socially. Cow was an integral part of a Hindu family as was any other human member in the family. He even found that in many places the total number of cattle was more than the number of humans living there.

Ancient Indians used cow urine, butter milk and manure, not artificial chemical fungicides and insecticides. Artificial pesticides also kill useful microbes in the soil which otherwise help plants absorb nutrients. So if one uses artificial chemicals in agriculture, plants will be devoid of nutrients because the useful microbes are dead. So then farmers also become forced to use artificial fertilizers because plants are not naturally able to absorb nutrient from the soil. So the artificial pesticides kick in a vicious cycle where the soil quality is constantly degraded. After all, the trees in forest grow healthy fruits without the need for any artificial fertilizers!

So Robert Clive decided to break the backbone of agriculture in India – the holy cows have to be targeted. And thus was opened the first slaughterhouse of cows in India in 1760 by Robert Clive at Kolkata. It had a capacity to kill 30,000 cows per day. And anyone can guess within a year’s time how many cows would have been killed. And within a century India had very little cattle left to sustain its agricultural needs. And Britain as an alternative started offering artificial manure, and in this manner urea, phosphate etc started getting imported from England. Indian agriculture had started becoming dependent on west invented artificial products and was forced to give up home grown natural practices.

Guess what, till 1760 most of India had banned not only cow slaughter, but also prostitution and drinking wine was banned as well. Robert Clive made all three legal and removed the ban.

Now the British had hit two birds with a single stone by this move. The first was to break the backbone of the Indian agriculture ie making cattle not available for agriculture. And the second?

Well, obviously Hindus did not work as butchers at the slaughter houses opened by the British. And of course the British were well known for their divide and rule policies which they practiced throughout their colonial kingdoms then. So what did they do? Well, they hired muslims as butchers and this was done in almost every slaughterhouse they opened. And this slowly pushed the muslims into believing that beef eating was their religious right.

What the Mughal empire had banned had been turned into a practice by the British empire. What Babur and Akbar termed as a crime was converted into a norm by Robert Clive. And today the soil of India is filled with artificial fertilizers and pesticides while the holy Cow cries in the slaughterhouses. While there were over 70 breeds of cows in the country at the time of independence, today we have only 33 and even among them many breeds are facing extinction.

Guess what happened to the man who started all this? Robert Clive became a opium addict and later committed suicide by stabbing himself with a pen knife after being unable to withstand the pain caused by the illness that had resulted from opium addiction.

References:

  1. Cow Protection in India – L.L. Sundara Ram, pages 122-123 and 179-190.
  2. The foundations of the composite culture in India – Malika Mohammada
  3. The Cow and the Koran – People for Animals
  4. eng.gougram.org/cow-slaughtering/
  5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cli … aron_Clive

hitxp.com/articles/history/o … acy-india/