Was milk drawn in a different way in Srila Prabhupada's time?

by Syamasundara dasa

Based on the assumption that we should continue drinking milk, apart from
our own farms with hand milked cows what are the better alternatives. Even
organic farms use milking machines.

There is a major crisis within our society as you know very well. Srila
Prabhupada has asked ISKCON to produce their own food as well as other
things. This is certainly not prioritised within the management structures
and resources are not generally directed to developing more self
sufficiency. At the same time are own production of milk taking into account
the entire herd is protected and the oxen are used to care for the farm and
grow all the food needed milk will be at least 6 times more expensive than
is available in the market place (at least that is the case in the west).
As far as I know milk in India is 15 Rupees a litre and with a minimum daily
salary of 100 rupees that means a litre of milk is one sixth the cost of
days wages. In the uk with a minimum daily wage of £38 (7 working hours)
that would make a litre of milk at £6 equivelent. Would our devotees pay
this figure.

So we have to be sure what we are asking of our devotees. Protected milk is
not available in the market, at the same time devotees seem unwilling to pay
the real price from the goshallas. At the same time we must drink milk. So
in identifying what is wrong with milk we should not be pushing our devotees
into veganism as Srila Prabhupada could have asked us to do that but did
not.

From what I can see at the moment there is no push to provide milk for all
our farms even, what to speak of the other centres and projects and what to
speak of the devotee congregation.

If we dont get it together then somebody in another organisation or
buisiness will do it and we will be left feeling somebody has stolen our
fruit.

The solution is for ISKCON to provide its own milk and products and that way
we dont have to source them commercially. This is not easy. Until we make
cow protection livelihood based it will not take off but it will continue to
decline as it has been steadily over the last decades. We are witnessing the
demise of more and more farm projects if something drastic is not done soon
then it will be a great disaster.