Farm 1B

hare krishna so in this second second class we will be speaking about how to start a farm first of all when we try to start a farm we have to understand why we would like to have a farm what is the real cause behind it usually devotees say that i would like to have a farm because prabhupad said but i always say that it's not enough you have to have a reason why you would like to start a project especially when you're speaking about a community community development is something that you really have to plan

and by planning properly you will have the proper results so it's important to understand why you would like to have that you have to know the real need you have to understand the social need you have to understand the economic need and you have to understand what's the environment behind it you would also need to understand what you would like to achieve would you like to be self-sufficient or would you like to use the form for preaching or would you like to use it for simple living and high thinking only or your main idea is

to worship the deities there and to have the greek hostas moving there from the cities who cannot do book distribution so well so you have to know what you would like to achieve by having a farm after you understood what you would like to achieve you have to know what you would need for that you have to know whether you would need a gauchola a garden would you like to have deities on the farm would you like to have training facilities over there would you like to have facilities for tourists actually you would need to

have a detailed plan for what are the tools what are the facilities that you would need on the farm to achieve the goal that you set for yourself so the reason why we have to know why we need a farm is that we will be able to develop the farm we will able to find the proper location the proper people the proper surroundings according to our needs it's not that we will figure out that we would like to have a farm somewhere there in the middle of the country and we would like to have a

huge tourism and training facility over there we have to understand how to attract people there and if there are certain surroundings that facilitates our need then we should go for those options but we will get into these a little bit later too so after understanding after understanding the why of starting a farm it's good to know whose project is it many times we see that there is a devotee who would figure out that okay i will do a self-sufficient form and whoever would like to join then they can join but actually we have seen in

the history of iskcon and i've seen in many other places outside of iskcon when people start intentional communities then they have to understand what is the global picture what is the larger picture that they really fit into and i have to tell you that none of the farms within iscon that are standalone farms have been successful so the farm should define define themselves in relation to the surroundings in relation to the temples around it in relation to the other forms around it and the best thing is to have a global strategy on a national level

or a county level that the farm fits in because that would give the proper boost or the proper strength and the energy to develop the farm to maintain the farm and to have the proper relationship between the farm and all the surroundings and the different other centers temples and also the other farms so when the farms are part of a larger plan or a larger broader strategy then the farm would also have easier access to the resources that it would need could it be financial or human resource many times we can see that standalone farms

have the problem of having the right funds so that they can run the farm's operations properly and sometimes even human resource wise they don't work properly because they just cannot have the proper amount of devotees who can run the farm nicely who can run all the operations the garden the goshala the dt worship the preaching the tourism the administration and all the other aspects of farm management they just cannot have because they don't have enough devotees so when we have a global picture and the form fits in a national global strategy then it can be

successful otherwise there's a high chance that it will fail okay so let's speak about finding the right location for your farm it's important to understand the three major aspects of finding a proper location the environmental the social and the economic aspects of it so when we are speaking about the the different aspects of finding the right location first we have to understand as we were speaking about that earlier we have to understand the why so if we know why we would like to have a farm then we can find the right location for it we

can find the right environment the right surroundings for example if you would like to have tourism then it's really good to be close to a highway where a lot of people are moving around or close to a larger city or a town so that people can have easily access to to your property but if you would like to have gardening and you would like to provide enough vegetables and and fruits and honey and all the other things uh to the city temples then you should find a place where soil is really good and and rich

in nutrients so that and so that when you grow vegetables they will be healthy and they will be they will be large and and you can sell them easily so based on your needs you should decide where to locate your farm so the first thing is to find out what natural resources do you have on the land that you would like to buy you have to see the quality of the soil the water if there is any river or spring or any other water bodies on on the property you have to understand the climate there

and and also you have to see what are the utilities that you can have access to whether you have electricity you have waste water management system already set beside or on the property whether you have running water already there on the property or you have to start with everything from scratch also you have to you have to see the surroundings of the property and and the quality of the soil and how the other people around your property are doing their agricultural work whether they use pesticides or fertilizers that are chemical and and how how far

they are from the area where you would like to do your gardening or your agriculture and and based on these factors you can you can choose a right plot based on your natural resources so this is how you can choose your plot or your land based on your natural resources let's speak a little more about the land based on your needs you should see how large land you would like to have whether only a few hectares or acres would be sufficient or you would like to have a larger area you have to see whether you

would like to have animal husbandry or you would like to have cows or you won't have you don't want to have cows so based on your needs you can properly define how large area you would like to need just to give you a few numbers four hundred people in a european climate you would need around one and a half hectares of land to feed them with vegetables you would need one and a half hectares of land for grain production you would need around half a hectare land for fruits but you would need one hectare of

land per cow to keep them properly in that climate in the european climate so you have to measure everything according to your needs and if you have that then you can identify properly the the size of the area that you would need so that you can fulfill the need of your community also when you try to occupy a land then you have to go deeply and understand the regulatory background of it what are the what are the legal opportunities for for you in regards to that land what can you build how can you cultivate are

there any monuments on it that are ancient and and under protection and all the different details legal issues how many owners of that land does it have so all the different details you have to know from the legal aspect from the legal point of view also another interesting aspect by finding the right location at least for us in hungary it was really interesting journey is that how accessible that land should be we wanted to have a remote place that is accessible but not so much in the mainstream so we have found a village that we

call a dead end village there's only one road that goes in the village and at the end of the village we bought some houses and that's how the farm started we bought some houses and we bought the land and because we were quite close to one of the largest highways or the busiest highways of hungary then we started having tourists so in this way it is accessible because it's only 20 kilometers away from the highway but at the same time it's a remote place where the devotees can easily and nicely comfortably stay and do their

worship do their meditation do their sadhana so that they can come closer to krishna so it's also important for you to understand the economic background of the area where you would like to locate your farm the economic background meaning how many enterprises are there how many farms are there what's the average wage of of the people who are who are there how accessible the workforce is if you would need to hire people because the devotees number would not be enough to cultivate the land to properly meet your needs then how easy would it be to

hire people and to employ them how trained they are in agriculture or how trained they are in tourism or any other aspects that you would like to have on your farm and you can outsource to non-devotees if one of your goals is to produce vegetables and to sell it on the outside market you should understand how far your market is and how your market expenditure structure is because that would determine whether your farm is located in the right place so this also comes into the economic environment that you're trying to deal with when you try

to set up your farm and there's a third aspect of finding the right place for a farm community and that's a social aspect and i have to tell you that that is the most sensitive part so usually you have to look for places where people around the place are favorable or neutral to krishna consciousness and we are not just speaking about people in general we are speaking about the leaders the intellectuals in the area we are speaking about the the priests who are there we are speaking about the people in general also so that when

we move there and we start a farm we have to understand what is their reaction could be there will always be some people who are extreme and who would not like you and especially when you start hiring people and they don't seem to live up to the expectations that you set so you fire them then they could be anemical that's that's natural that's that's not a problem but you have to have a general mood within the community that you will settle in with your special krishna conscious community that the general mood is favorable towards towards

you and it's really important that you have to maintain the general favorable mood and for that you have to have different programs to have the local communities to help the local people to to have the local economy and to enhance the environment and to have the right approach how you can influence your surroundings and your community so you have to try to maintain that favorable mood towards krishna consciousness within the broader community that you will settle in and to maintain that you have to have programs there you can you can do food for life you

can do programs for the children you can do programs for the for the elderly you can employ people you can give trainings to them you can do a lot of things to maintain and to develop that favorable favorable mood in the in the surroundings or the area or the community the larger community that you will settle in so for choosing the right location you also have to consider that each and every operation has an input side and an output sign i always have to see how easily accessible are the inputs that you would need to

to met the needs and the goals of your community and also you have to see how accessible the target audience is that you would like to out to have your output for for the input and the output you have to see three major things what's the geographical what's the regulatory and what's the legal side of accessing the inputs and the outputs so also it's an important aspect that that you should see whether you can gain any influence over the inputs and the outputs and also whether you can influence in in the proper and righteous way

the regulatory and legal processes that are there like whether you can get into the local leaders council or mayor's council or you can have a representative in the council's meeting so you can express your needs you can express your concerns properly so it's always good to have a right route so that you can have your voice heard so the next element of starting a farm after choosing the right location is choosing the right people and it also starts with the why why do you have a farm and if you have that answer then you would

see what kind of devotees you would need to have on the farm but choosing the right people actually that's one of the hardest things choosing the right location is quite easy compared to choosing the right people and usually the experience is that we try to work with the devotees who are available and that's good but exactly because we are doing this the most important aspect of starting a farm is setting the right values ethics and morals of the community so that the devotees know what are the expectations towards them right at the beginning when they

move in the farm or even before they move in the farm it's important to understand that and that if we set the proper entry level then the devotees will be able to adjust to that and you can have the right training for the devotees you can have the proper ishtagoshti's you can have proper communication but the most important thing is to define the entry level and that's usually a set of values what you would like to have on the farm like you have to define whether you would like to have private property on the farm

or you would only have common uh real estate and commerce common property that belongs to iskcon and it doesn't belong to any individuals also it's important to define whether the devotees who are living on the farm could be and should be maintained by the operations of the farm or they should consider going out and maintain themselves by other means so all the different elements has to be defined right in the beginning when you start the form and when when you define these expectations when you defined all the social the environment and the economic expectations then

you should educate the devotees who would like to move there and education doesn't mean a formal education that you sit down and you you tell them that these are the things education would also mean that there are informal discussions informal gatherings and we try to understand the devotees individual nature we try to see their their habits whether they could be adjusted to the expectations of the farm and gradually we can raise the devotees after the level that they can move in a farm and they can live in a community we will speak about the social

aspect of the of the farm later when we speak about the social sustainability but we have to understand that the foundation of a good working community is defining the entry level values and expectations for the individuals when we're starting a farm then we have a tendency to just accept anyone and everyone on the farm so that somehow let it start and actually i would say that it's not a bad idea to move forward like that but then you will have a lot of problems down the line later on like five ten years later because then

the devotees will figure out that it's really not their cup of tea and they would like to live in another way and then there could be a split or several splits within the community so because of these things i always have emphasized that there should be regular communication within the community and when you start a community that means that you will have devotees moving to to the farm from other places from different centers different temples and if you have the overall or general strategy then it won't be hard to discuss the different issues in regards

to having devotees on the farm with the temple presidents with the temple boards and with the individuals who would like to move there because there's a national strategy or a global strategy behind it so i would like you to to always think of a global strategy that your farm is part of and not something that you would like to pursue yourself because it would not work on the longer run it will not work there should also be a right proportion of brahmacharis angry hustons on the farm especially when you start it because if you start

it with a lot of green hostas who especially have children or would like to have children in the upcoming one or two years then it won't be so easy to maintain all the operations because that usually means that the mothers who will give birth they will get out of the everyday service and activities and their husbands focus on developing the farm will not be hundred percent it it will decrease and because of of that the operations and and all the services that you would like to do on the farm they will not be up to

the standard as you would like to have it so what i would suggest is is that for the first three to five years you should have a stable devotee base who can do the activities who can maintain the services and who can build a really strong foundation for all the operations of the farm if you have that then you can build on the strong foundation and gradually the community can blossom and can have many more aspects so when we speak about devotees living on the farm or trying to move to the farm then we should

understand that there is a limit of renunciation that devotees can handle especially when we speak about grihastas they can handle renunciation for a certain degree but not over that so you have to be really conscious about what you expect from the devotees especially when it comes to to the greenhouse stores when they would like to have children you cannot keep them in extremely small places or not clean places or places that they cannot keep up to the center so it's it's important to have the right facilities for the right people and it's also really important

to to understand the devotees individual needs i just give you an example for the right facilities all the improper facilities like in christian valley in the beginning we had only that one little house and the brahmacharis were staying there and i was staying there for some time also and during the winter time we we had to go out to take a bath and we called the bath an observatory because when we went out we could see the stars and actually we had to crack the ice in the barrel to have access to liquid water and

and to have a bath so that that can be handled for some time but if it's for too long then devotees would definitely not like to live on on the farm so we have to understand the individuals needs and we must not force them to do something that's really over their limits for a long time so when someone would like to start a farm usually the main question is where do i start with what do i start with and as i already said earlier that the main aspect of it is the social aspect so you

have to start with defining the rules regulations values ethics morals all these things so that devotees would understand what they can expect also you have to define what are the facilities that you would you would be able to provide it's also really important to understand what projects you would like to start with would you like to start with a garden or start with a gold shallow or start with dt worship what what are those aspects that you would like to start start with from day one usually devotees say that okay it's a farm so i

would like to have a gauchala there and what my answer is that okay i understand that you would like to have a goshala but first try to grow cabbage and then try to take care for the cows if you can do it with the cabbage then it's okay then move forward and do something else also but if you fail growing the cabbage then it's better not to start with caring for the cows because you know cows will be around for 20 years 16 20 some of them stay there for 22 24 years so a cabbage

is there for one year only so it's really important to understand that if you get into something how you will get out of it so if you start a gosha then you should understand what are the different details of having cows how long a cow lives what are the needs of the cows what facilities would they need how many devotees would you need to care for the cows and to give the right protection but when we speak about what to start with we should understand that the bottom line is that devotees should live and living

the basic necessity for that is that they have to eat something they have to drink something and they have to have a shelter so these three three things are about online so from day one you have to provide these these things and if you cannot then you can't develop a community there and let's talk about a little about self-sufficiency and sustainability what's the difference self-sufficiency means that you can produce what you need sustainability means that you can have access to what you need and you you can see that there's a really great difference between the

two so i can say that krishna valley is sustainable but i cannot say that krishna valley is self-sufficient krishna valley is self-sufficient in terms of vegetables and fruits it has 10 times more grain than the communities need it has eight times more honey than the communities need but it's not self-sufficient at all in making cloth or pottery or energy so we have to see that the community should be sustainable and what are the aspects that could be self-sufficient on the longer run when you start the farm then you also have to keep in mind a

very simple principle and that is the kiss principle keep it simple sadhu that's very important if you would like to do a lot of things at a time then it will be really hard to maintain and we would like to maintain everything that we start so it is important to start with small small baby steps and to gradually grow your farm and as i said the bottom line is you should give food to the devotees who are there you should give clean water to the devotees who are staying there and they should have a shelter

to stay in the last part of how to start a farm community is what kind of leadership structure you would like to have on the farm i have to tell you that you should be flexible with that as we already learned there should be consistency and there should be flexibility in leadership consistency meaning that the values the ethics the rules the regulations all those things should be principal based based on sadhu guru and shastra but at the same time there should be flexibility to understand time place and circumstance and the needs of the devotees according

to time place and circumstance so it is important for us to have a flexible leadership structure also it doesn't matter what it is it could be a temple board it could be a tamper president it could be a mix of these it could be that the farm is handled from a city temple board and so there could be there could be many different uh permutations of of this uh of these elements but the main thing and that's the most important part of it that leadership good leadership will develop trust within the community good leadership will

give strength and give the power to the community to grow and go through the obstacles that will happen good leadership is consistent in its rules and regulations in its decisions good leadership is inspiring and good leadership is there for the community and it helps the community to grow properly and to fulfill srila prabhupada's desire so whatever leadership structure you would choose the principles are always the same and just as in krishna valley we change from having a temple president to have a temple board and to have a a chairman that's rotating in the temple board

and first we had only a few departments now we have nine divisions 50 plus departments so it should be flexible according to the needs and according to time place and circumstance but the main thing is that there should be consistency and there should be flexibility also in the leadership okay thank you very much so this was the first session that's how to start a community hare krishna