Cow Protection in the modern times for a city of 50,000 people
By Syamasundara Dasa
I wanted to layout some likely consequences and a possible plan how cow protection can be shaped to supply the needs of a city of 50,000 people in a modern setting. I have chosen India as that setting as it relates to a desire for our own ISKCON Mayapura City in West Bengal to have a population of 50,000.
The setting is important as it influences the types of breeds of cows you can select as your herd base and the likely yields of milk etc that can be expected. For example in western breeds we have records that protected cows can produce about 10,000 kg of milk per calf born, whereas we have figures of 2,000 kg of milk from a zebu type cow again per calf born. One reason why there is such a disparity in amount of milk per calf is because firstly the western types can give milk for many years over an extended lactation after having their calf whereas this phenomena is not practiced and hardly known in Zebu types.. In other words, a western type breed can currently produce about five times more milk per calf than a zebu type. To extrapolate herd size we need to know how much milk we are aiming to produce and how many cows need to be impregnated annually to achieve that amount of milk. Your annual breeding plan will grow the herd to a stabilization figure in about 16 years wherein the same number of cows will be departing as are appearing, as long as your annual breeding numbers remain constant. We will come back to this in our plan for the city.
An important international consideration between western type cows and zebu type cows is the ability to produce extended lactations even after the calf has been weaned. Let me explain, it is a known truth that western protected cows can give milk for many years after the calf has been born. At some point the calf is going to be weaned, which for me is about 6 months, however the cow can still and will produce more milk (if she has not been re-impregnated) for some time further. There are many testimonials from cow protectors who state they have cows that have continued giving milk for even 8 years, 10 years and even 14 years since the birth of their cow. It seems in most cases all the western type cows can have extended lactations as long as their general conditions are consistently met. From records I kept as Goshala Manager at Bhaktivdeanta Manor we find that the average period of extended lactation for western type cows is about 4 years. For zebu types there are no comparable practices or documented evidence. In other words, we do not really know how long we can extend the lactation of a zebu type cow because it has not been practiced or even known about systematically. We do hear of individual cases where the lactation was extended over a year and a half (such as reported in the Krishna-balarama goshala in vrindavana India) and we have heard from a family in India who stated that they had cows that had lactations of four years. So, there are some testimonials but there is no clear statistical verification we can use for extrapolation purposes. We can simply say it must be a possibility and one that should be seriously explored for those who want to shape a dairy plan for a city like Mayapura.
How much milk should we be aiming to provide for our residents for a 50,000 population city like Mayapura?
In New Vrindavana, West Virginia, USA in a room conversation on June 24th 1976 Srila Prabhupada said maximum one pound and minimum half a pound of milk per person per day. For our dairy herd plan for a city like Mayapur we will use half a pound of milk for each person each day. Our interpretation will be that all the residents milk-based products will have to come from that daily allocation. In other words, all the yogurt, butter, ghee, cheese, and ice cream etc. will have to be managed from a daily allocation of half a pound of milk per person per day. Of course, if you note that Srila Prabhupada said a maximum one pound and you want to target that just double the figures I will be giving.I am used to working in kilogrammes and litres and so I will use kgs for my calculations. One pound of milk is equal to 0.45 kilograms (450 grams) of milk and thus a half pound of milk is 225 grams of milk. We will extrapolate a plan to provide at least 225 gm of milk per person per day in our 50,000 people resident city.
How much milk will be needed daily and each year for the city?
For this study I will not use seasonal differences in milk availability to avoid complicating it further. In the UK milk yield from protected cows differs by as much as 50% from summer production to winter production. In other words, you might get say 100 litres per day in the summer and in the depths of winter the same cows will give 50 litres per day. This is due to the weather and more particularly the differences in eating fresh grass versus stored hay. For ease of calculation, I will just equalize the yield over the whole year. India has its own seasonal differences based on climate and forage availability etc. For those who want to really shape a detailed plan for the city seasonal differences are particularly important but I won’t be doing it here.
Our residents will need a supply of .225 kg of milk per day and there are 50,000 of them. To make calculation a bit easier I will take this over the whole year. Here is the calculation .225kg x 50,000 people x 365 days = 4,106,250 kgs which is the total milk yield needed to supply the whole city for one year. Our city will need a milk supply from protected cows of just over 4 million kg each year.
How many cows are going to need to protect to supply our milk needs?
In one of our previous paragraphs, we have mentioned that a zebu type cow can produce about 2000 kgs of milk per year for each calf born. To provide our city we will need to impregnate enough cows each year to provide all the milk. Our calculation will be 4,106,250 kgs of milk / 2000 kgs per cow = 2,053 cows being impregnated annually.
To understand what the total balanced herd size will be means we must know what is the average age a cow will live for and calculate the total herd growth size. There are many figures given by cow protectors of the average age a cow can live for and these can be up to say 23 years old or on average 18 years old, however there are no documented records of the average a protected zebu cow lives for. To get an average you must also consider calf mortality or the number of calves who sadly are lost at birth. You must also consider cows that pass on due to accident or disease. From actual recorded figures of western type cows, we get an average life of about 16 years.
If we multiply the number of cows born each year by their average life, we will get an idea of the total balanced herd size. In our study this is 2,053 calves born annually x 16 years = 32,848 cows, calves, bulls, and oxen. To provide the milk products from zebu type cows for our city of 50,000 residents we are going to build their herd up to about 33,000 cows. That is almost one and half residents per cow.
A herd of 33,000 cows for a city of 50,000 people sounds quite intimidating and unobtainable for many reasons. Is there anything we could do to adjust those figures?
Hybrid cows. In a conversation between Srila Prabhupada and Jayapataka Maharaja Srila Prabhupada raised the point about why not breed the Indian cows with the Jersey cow so that there would be more milk but still have good climate tolerance. Interbreeding with zebu types and western types is not a new idea and has been practiced for some time. You will see many cows in the local villages that do not have humps and are thus partially or wholly western types. Currently there is emergence of Indian nationalism that is influencing even the world of which cows to keep. Sometimes very cruel and speciest comments are made that prioritize the importance of the Zebu types over the western types. No doubt there is a great importance in maintain the indigenous breeds of cows and this should be done, however this study is about milk production for a small city and hence we must consider some practical steps how this could be done to improve the productivity without effecting the wellbeing of the cows. If we can increase the milk productivity of the cities herd then we could in effect reduce the overall number of cows required. It is the domain of vaisyas/merchant type people to work towards efficiency and increase productivity, and this is especially the case with cows, as cow protection is one of the main activities described in the Bhagavad Gita for vaisyas. Krishi-go rakshya vanijyam BG 18.44 Cultivation, cow protection and trade are the natural work for the vaisyas. I would expect a hybrid jersey/gir cow to give at least 4000 litres of milk and have the ability to extend the lactation. This would be a doubling of the yield of a gir only. This in effect would mean that our city of 50,000 would need a herd of about 16,000 cows, calves, bulls and oxen. This would change the ration to 1:3 cows to people.
Virgin milkers. Spontaneous lactations. We find in our ISKCON herds so many examples of cows that have produced milk spontaneously without even having a calf. Sometimes the cows are noticed that have swollen milk bags without even being impregnated. Sometimes the milking carers induce the cow to give milk just by trying regularly. After a short while of trying the cows produce milk first a little and then gradually to a greater quantity. We don’t know exactly how many cows have this ability because it has not been tested and observed and recorded systematically. However, we do have enough testimonials to expect this possibility to be latent in most cows. In humans this ability is how wet nurses earned their income by inducing their own milk flow to feed others children.
From our total herd of 16,000 hybrid cows, calves, oxen and bulls we could expect to have about 4,000 milking cows taking into account an average of 4 year lactation and breeding 1000 cows each year to get to our balanced herd size of about 16,000. Here is a bit more technical detail. Of the herd of 16,000 we would have 1,000 female calves up to 2 years old, 4000 milking cows, 8,000 males (calves, training, working, retired or breeding bulls) and 3000 dry cows of which we could estimate that 1000 are possible candidates to provide milk without being impregnated. We don’t know exactly how much milk a virgin milker gives in comparison to an impregnated milker and so I will assume it is about 50%. Thus each virgin milker of which we are estimating having 1000 would give a further 2000 litres of milk increasing the overall milk production by a further 2,000,000 kgs of milk each year. That is the possibility of producing 50% of the total city needs just from virgin milkers.
The city dairy planners could either reduce the total herd requirements taking into account the impregnated milkers and the virgin milkers production or they could sell the surplus cow protection milk. This milk can also be used for visitors at the various retail food outlets.
There are more things to be considered for a protected dairy supplying to a 50,000 population city but I will suggest those in another post. This would include how the cities herd could be managed by others and how all the oxen could be meaningfully engaged in work.
In summary you can provide all your population in a city of 50,000 with cow protection milk from a herd of less than 16,000 cows, calves, oxen, and bulls if these were hybrid breeds Jersey/Gir and your dairy management had extended lactations and milking virgin/induced cows. You would also have some surplus for use by visitors and for other sales.