THE cost of a range of basic grocery items has risen well above inflation over the past five years and industry experts warn that prices are set to increase further in 2008.

The prolonged drought, soaring farm business costs, high grain prices and booming overseas demand for some Australian produce is putting pressure on food prices.

...and an opportunity for the farmers amongst us.

Even though technically within the Iskcon movement we don't have such a great working model as yet, we do have the philosophical foundation to explain why and how spirituality is connected to sustainability and that there is no such thing as sustainability without spirituality. It is nothing but understanding the movement of the modes of nature, the permutation of goodness, passion and ignorance moving around. But the actual sustainability is that you are doing it for the pleasure and service of God. Therefore by Gods grace and his expansions or assistants, that arrangement makes everything co-operate with your effort to make nice devotional offerings. That's actual sustainability.

Here's Pabhupada's angle on it.

Human beings can inhabit any place on the surface of the earth by clearing jungles and converting land for agricultural purposes. People can keep cows, and all economic problems can be solved in that way. One need only work to produce grains and take care of the cows. The wood found in the jungles may be used for constructing cottages. In this way the economic problem of humanity can be solved. SB 4.30.44

Kurma responds comprehensively to a vegan challenge. This is a challenge for all ISKCON. Something we need to do a lot more work on...

We serve the cows, look after them, and treat them with love and affection until the day they die of natural causes, like we would our mother.

In return they happily give bountifully their excess milk for use by us. With these dairy products we prepare offerings of sacred food for God, and those who prepare these dishes, those who partake of these foods, as well as the cows themselves, are all spiritually elevated.

These ideas are far, far beyond the ken of the materialistc vision, what to speak of mundane dairy industrialists.

Cows are unique amongst all animal species and there is a very sacred and deep bond that spiritual adherents based on traditional Vedic lifestyle can appreciate.

Before freezers were around canning was the most popular method of preserving. In many cold climate households, especially in rural areas, canning is still the primary method of storing garden produce. An obvious advantage of canning is that there is practically no storage problem. You may can until your basement bulges whereas your freezer space is definitely limited. And you need only invest in a pressure canner and canning jars, both of which can be used over and over again, through many harvests.

More stuff is not making us happier--but we can't break out of the cycle that offers more stuff as our only real goal.

What we really seem to want, according to the economists and psychologists conducting such research, is more community. Standard economic theory has long assured us that we're insatiable bundles of desires. That may be true, but more and more it feels like our greatest wish is for more contact with other people. We've built the most hyper-individualized society the world has ever seen: According to some surveys, most Americans don't know their next-door neighbors, which is a truly novel idea for primates. That's contributed to the great success of our economy--each of us rises and falls based on our own efforts, which is a great motivator. But it's also contributed to that gathering sense of dissatisfaction, and to that cloud of carbon dioxide.

"This is God's world," (they said), which is a shocking idea for a culture that's come to think of everything as ours.

For all those booked for the Retreat please take note of the following details.

The retreat starts at 6pm on Friday 21st April and continues until 2pm Monday 24th April. The next day, Tuesday is a public holiday in commemoration of Anzac Day.

• Bhurijana prabhu's seminar ~ Knowledge, Surrender, and Devotion:
  A Study of Three Powerful Sections of the Bhagavad-gita
• Jagattarini matji ~ "Saintly sons- Dhruva and Prahlada"

Manigriva sent me some shots from his Sunday working bee at the farm. He’s working on the front paddock which is on the right hand side of the track as you enter the farm. We’re removing bracken so we can plant grass seed for a hay crop to be harvested next year.

Hari Bol prabhu, we had a good day at the farm today we just worked on the front paddock, dunda was really good value on the tractor and rama was a strong arm on the end of some pretty big logs, i dont think he,ll have any trouble sleeping tonight. Weve got about 40% left to clear im hoping to get that done this week.

Manigriva and Jnana have been putting up a pen for the cows at Nandagram. The weather was pretty good by the looks of it. We've got a few cows who need a bit of maintenance on their feet so this little pen will help us manage that process nicely. The plan is to build a decent sized cowshed nearby where we can shelter and feed sick and ailing cows. Our herd is very old so we are going to have to do a fair bit of that in the next few years.

Jayapataka Swami's flight leaves at 7.00 am so we'll head off after we've seen him off at the airport.

# Posted by Aniruddha at 25/12/04; 7:59:00 PM to the Farm dept.
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There are 200 zucchini plants and 400 sweet corn. We are going to have zucchinis and sweet corn coming out of ears by the end of summer.

Jnana is now working on fixing up the Goshalla area. We need to install a cow shed, crush and pens for keeping the cows while we work on them. They need their hooves trimmed, drenching for worms and other maintenance from time to time. The old dairy isn't up to the task so we are planning a bigger facility for the future care of Krsna's cows.

# Posted by Aniruddha at 19/11/04; 10:25:12 AM to the Farm dept.
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Manigriva has finished hoeing the market garden field. All the oats has now been folded back into the soil. I guess it lies like that till next year when we do the same again. You can see the patch on the right of the shed. If you look closely you can see the tractor in there. It's pretty small which gives you an idea of how big the paddock really is. Once we get that all planted we're going to be busy.

Jnana told me they also planted 200 sweet corn and 200 zucchinis in the smaller market garden area. You can see its southwestern tip just below the big white shed.

They also have plans to start work on our new cow pen and shed.

# Posted by Aniruddha at 11/11/04; 12:53:55 PM to the Farm dept.
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Manigriva sent me a few pictures of work done at the farm this week. Although it doesn't look like much the parking space in the shed has been greatly improved so our equipment can be parked inside. They cleaned up a fair bit of mess by the looks of it. Now our tools won't be exposed to the elements and thieves are less likely to want to drive off with them. It's a reality we have to deal with. Tools were stolen earlier this year.

If the picture above looks a bit blurry don't worry, it's not your eyes. I wish he would hold his camera still. I couldn't post the last lot of shots because they were too blurry and the one above almost didn't make it either.

Manigriva has also rotary hoed half of the oats (above) that were planted as a manure crop for what will eventually become our market garden area. He also has completed our smaller plot where we had a reasonable crop of zucchinis last year.

This was a nice crisp shot. The oats in the foreground will be ploughed back into the soil to increase the organic matter.

Manigriva is getting ready to spray organic seaweed fertiliser on our oats crop. It looks like he's all set up and ready to go.

We also want to get some other pasture ready for the cows who will eat grass all day long if you let them.