In year 2008 I got in touch with an unsual man, Vellore Srinivasan. His passions are afforestation in Vellore hills to keep Vellore cooler , giving job opportunities to people by contributing towards environment (rather than destructing nature's web) and last but never the least, proving to the world how one can make money from waste rather than spending money in displacing and dumping waste. It is my urge to understand solutions to this panacea that I worked with Srinivasan in implementing the AID (Association for India's Development, Seattle Chapter) sponsored zero waste management project in my apartment ( Tungabhadra Block, NGV, Bangalore) (In spite of the many warnings I recieved from people about his "stupid" ideas of involving cow and chicken in waste management ). To me, he made more sense than the arm chair environmental specialists who never dared to try. He is a grass root level person, who could convert anything that you trash to wealth. His main connection with nature is the holy cow - to him, cow urine and cow dung can transform any biodegredable waste into useful manure. Many times when he insisted a zero waste centre MUST have a cow, we all laughed at him. Through his practical experiments he has proved that cow produces 1/4 th of what you feed as cowdung in less than 48 hours. Then why not segregate wet waste into cattle eatable food and feed the cow to convert into dung which will eventually transform food waste ?
Cow dung as a solution to waste stink
The day I was faced with a stinking issue in my 220 apartment level community compost bed, I realised what Srinivasan was trying to make me understand. I poured few litres of cow dung slurry only to reliase how it can act like a switch subsiding the stink. Dipping food waste into cow dung slurry is an important step to accelerate the process of composting . Cow dung is nothing but a bacterial innoculant.
Later, when I had to keep fish waste in my house overnight till the next waste collection happens,I tried something more magical. By then I had learnt how to make panchagavya from Srinivasan. I poured 20 ml of panchagavya into the waste bin where the fish waste was dumped . Next day morning I opened the lid and realised there was no smell.. The bacteria in panchagavyam was doing the job for me overnight. In Srinivasan's words, these are unpaid workers converting our waste into useful resource free of cost. How to make panchagavyam (Photos)
https://picasaweb.google.com/114537715609910052557/PanchagavyaPreparationForOrganicFertilizer#
Benefits of Panchagavyam :
When I planted the idea of making panchagavyam in our land in Wynad as a substitute for ordinary fertilizer / pesticide, everyone laughed at me. Especially when I said we need 1kg ghee to be mixed with 5 kg cowdung. No one understood that it was economically and environmentally more viable to spend money on ghee rather than on chemical from monsanto. Thanks to the news about endosulphan that was flashing across kerala, the people who were managing our land had some patience to try out the Panchagavya recepie I shared. The immediate effect was on the few coffee we had on the sides. My uncle jokingly said, the coffee seeds resemble small coconuts after applying panchagavya . Later when we started making panchagavyam in my apartment Tungabhadra, NGV in Bangalore, I started experimenting on my plants. The amazing effect was on the tomato that was never planted by me. The pots were treated with panchagavyam every 15 days and it was amazing to see how the little space in my terrace was turning into a small garden . Panchagavya is known to improve the immunity level in the plants . If made using the products of the same cow , as per the prescription in ancient texts, it is also known to be a cancer drug that can be consumed by humans. Many temples in India add panchagavya into the theertha that they serve. Like cow dung, cow urine is used as a bio pesticide mixing with neem cake.
In essence Panchagavya improves immunity in plants, cures infested plants of diseases, reduces 30% water requirement in plants thus helping plants to survive in high drought conditions , improves fruition and flowering in plants.. It is the improvement of fruition that I saw in my garden in the form of tomatoes !
Why shift goshalas away from cities ? :
Like waste, cow is a misplaced resource in the forest. They destroy the grasslands by overgrazing thus impacting the foodsource for chitals and other herbivores. When the habitat for chitals are lost to grazing, then the apex predator tiger would suffer thus triggering series of man-animal conflicts closer to the fringes of the forest. The recent killing of tiger by villagers in this horrifying episode described by Prerna Bindra is a clear case of men and cattle infiltrating into tiger's territory http://indianaturally.blogspot.com/2011/12/editorial-tigerlink-nov-2011.html
The government is deciding to shift the goshalas from cities to far away areas. The IT kids who are averse to seeing the cow cross the road while travelling with their American client probably want cities devoid of cows - this is what the American way of life has taught them. While Americans dump their mixed waste into pacific ocean to create the "great pacific garbage patch " (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch) , they ensure their cities are clean by sheer 'displacement of waste' . These IT kids who contribute 50% of their salary to produce waste are alien to the whole idea of how cow's dung and urine are solutions to the eye sore they deal with in Indian cities .
Cow is a sacred animal for the Indians. I am not religious to worship the cow , neither do I eat beef ( not because of religious sentiments but to reduce the intake of food grains , energy and water towards the meat industry) . Experience has taught me the importance of cow for its dung and urine . Probably these are more valuable for us than cow's milk in future - it has the property to keep our cities devoid of diseases caused by waste dumping ! Let the cow remain in our cities and not in our forests !
Very informative! thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I always tell people that cows are the best composters. No need of a khamba and all. :P
ReplyDeleteGood one Meera!
ReplyDeleteNice Post Meera, I have not yet tried panchgavyam on my plants, I think I should try it soon.
ReplyDeleteHi Meera,
ReplyDeleteI have always appreciated your and Srinivasan's work and have made up my mind to work for better SWM now that I have shifted to hyderabad. Yet there's a big 'but' here.
As you say, let the cows be in the cities, for what? So that we can keep them confined to small places, rape them with artificial insemination or by bulls, feed them hormones that halves their lives, keep them pregnant almost throughout their lives, making their lives miserable, finally when the calf comes, if it's male, send them to slaughter house and if its a female, let the cycle of rape, pregnancy and death continue - moreover, let them moan endlessly coz they cant feed their babies, because we humans, need their milk to make our chocolates, ice creams, ghee, sweets, cheese and paneer - and hence we think its our right to snatch the right of the baby calf to his mother's milk - coz we are too used to drinking milk, even after we got our share of milk from our monthers! And now, there's one more reason, we need cows, coz we want to take care of the waste that 'we' generate. so cows are in all burdened with responsibility of taking care of our needless milk drinking habits, our addiction to sweets and chocolates and ghee and then also taking care of our waste! Isn't it too much for a poor cow?
Yes, cows overgraze in forests today, coz we have overbred them, domesticated them for 'our' use. In the natural environment, cow's wouldn't need to overpower the whole forest. But it's sad that you think cows don't deserve the freedome of the forest life like all the animal does. No animal belong to human habitation, they are here, because we have destroyed forests, because we have domesticated some.
If you think closely, why Srini and all the other waste management and organic farming experts use only cow dung? Why not dog poop or poop of other domestic animal? From whatever I have explored, the only reason is, cows are heavily domesticated, and the dung quantity is very high compared to other domestic animals. and hence Most research has been done on cow dung and not for any other domestic animal, as its very easily available.
Yes, I feel SWM is a need of the hour, and I want to do more for it. But I also want to find a way of not relying on animal extortion for the same.
(a reference video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE9DlnqZxkU - it's not the only one. I myself have seen many more evidence in the real life. ALL the stuff shown in the video does happen. And more in the so-called better city farms). Would you still say, let cows be in the cities?
One more point: Why do we feel for tigers and chitals and not cows? Why there's an alarm raised only when the spices are on the verge of extintion? Sainthat said rightly (although in the humanitarian context) - "How agonized we are about how people die. How untroubled we are about how they live." - lets also see the picture by replacing humans by animals.
Sejal - http://sejswhirlpool.wordpress.com/
Sejal Parikh I don't understand who this aimless yap is directed to??
ReplyDeleteHere are a few points - please read them carefully and don't bother responding as usual as u hardly help!
1. Your whole point is based on the assumption that cows in the backyard will be treated like in factory farming. What if that is not the case? Cow is treated like a sacred animal in many homes and most people talking about having them back in the back yard intend to treat them no less.
2. If you are suggesting veganism - you don't have a practicable solutin. Asking the whole world to go vegeterian or vegan is outright stupid! You will get know where. If you told them how they would benefit from it at least you might have an audience but if you talk of saving titanic using a bucket u r at loss.
3. Stop suggesting! If you think dog poop is better - be our guest - come and experiment and share y0ur results. Your recommendations are uncalled for and hardly any use. If all remains same your suggestions means that we should ill treat the other animals n not just the cow as u believe it is not getting as much attention as other animals!!!
4. If you think there is a problem with milking - don't do it. If it is distributed and each one had a cow at their home their needs would be taken care of and there wouldn't be a market for factory farming which is the real problem. So at least think of a solution that might just work.
5. Stop theorizing so much and do some work on field an we can talk then. If you spend 80% of your time discussing I m not sure how much you will ever accomplish. It is quite frustrating to see so much noise even for something with such good intent by some people who are spending so much time fighting educated uninformed. You can use a better target audience for your sermons! Please do not be an energy vampire.
6. Someone recently told me there is no point harping on what is wrong without having a solution. If you say this is not right please make sure you come up with a solution that is fool proof and can replace the current method - else you are wasting time yours and others. I can't even believe I am bothering writing this. But I want to make it clear that we don't want to entertain such commentary. If you have nothing more than suggestion keep them to urself kindly!
7. Know your audience - Meera, Srini, etc are all people working for the better ment of the world. Though animal welfare is not Srini's forte he is working on a waste management solution so that dogs are spared and not killed as their population can't be managed. Hoping his solution works in Mysore. If you helped with that mebbe you will help more animals being saved than discussing stuff here.
And I can't even see the problem. The suggestion is to make sure cow poop & urine which is _know_ to be very good to be put to good use. It would anyways be wasted otherwise. Even if you let it be all the methane from the gobar will release into the atmosphere. You might as well put it into a digester and use it as a fuel and convert it to less harmful CO2. But I believe there was a _discussion_ in which cows burp also was a problem in the past. So please let's talk solution else let it pass.
I would not be in favor of moving anything from forest to cities but anything that takes cow away from factory farming today is a better solution!
Peace,
Mynk
Hi Sejal,
ReplyDeleteYour points are valid about how we treat animals. As humans if we stop our dependency for milk and meat, we need less number of cows and lesser need for domestication.
Btw, I would never like to say, that we need to save the planet - we just need to save ourselves. When we are fighting to save tigers or save chitals, it is for our own self - Saving tigers means, saving the sources of our water, means saving ourselves.
As far as cows are concerned, after milking they reach the slaughter houses of kerala. The reason they reach there is mainly because humans do not know any other mechanism to make 'use' of cow once they stop milkng.The point Srini is trying to make is you just need to feed them well to get dung and urine - instead of sending to slaughter houses once they are done with milking - anyway these are not activities like an artificial insemination . This article only tries to bring people's attention away from milk and understand the importance of cow dung and urine which are right now dumped into the storm water drains releasing methane . We have been trying to work with goshalas to install bio methanation plant and few refuse to implement..
Let us agree that all human activities are done only in the interest of humans, these are realities we need to live with , all we can think of are practical ways to bring about a change, a change that doesn't look drastic for the population who are totally immune to what happens to their surroundings.. I am sure you would agree that doing SWM is beneficial to the plastic eating cows too !
Meera,
ReplyDeleteThe reality we need to live with is that the planet is for everyone and survival need not mean needlessly taking advantage of animals.
While I totally understand that your project gives cows more to eat than just plastics, why not just try giving dung of other animals a try - human beings included?
Why think of a cow as a'resource' at all? And turning vegan is not impractical. It is the best and the most viable solution for a greener planet.
Mynk - there is a bit of truth in Sejal says - true way to worship a cow is to let it feed its offspring with the milk produced exclusively for it. Drinking milk and the diary industry is one of the most unnatural things(among others) that human beings have been indulging in. And like biking to work and carrying a bag for shopping, it is easy to get started - just stop drinking milk and diary products! And you don't have to be vegan - you can still eat cow's meat, that's not a crime, killing to eat is no sin in nature!
ReplyDelete@Mayank: I guess I will start ignoring your stupid comments, as they are written without making sense of what I was trying to say.
ReplyDelete@Meera, I do get your point. Yes, keeping cows in the backyard instead of slaughter houses may become better, in the present situation. I am only worried about the correct implementation, in the future when there are possibilities of having large scale SWM projects, will everyone make sure to have those cows that stop giving milk, or will people see this as another opportunity where in they can make money by using milk and have dung and urine as a by product?
Like Sunshinemom (harini) suggested, I have been exploring if human waste can be used for these instead of cowdung, in that case we may be able to stop spoiling our rivers as well. There are some sites they claim its usage, but the issue there is the possibilities of soap/detergent being mixed with it.
But I guess we should be open to explore further. Thanks.
@meera:
ReplyDeleteLast thing, I do agree we have been seeing human usage in everything. I too used to see things that way when I started off. But lately I find something very wrong with that. I want to work for natural conservation for the sake of nature and other living beings, as being human, I have destroyed and exploited so much with present ways of living, that its only my duty to see if I am not doing more harm. I want to preserve forest for all the living being living the in forest, not only humans. Well, that's one point of view!
@Jaydeep: Tigers hunting day and night and killing deers with their jaws and teeth and eating it right then and there without cooking is not crime, its very natural. But humans rasing chickens and cows, in pathetic conditions and killing them with tools and machines and then freezing them in low temperatures and then eating them only after cooking - do you think that's natural?
I wont say more on this, as it might sidetrack the whole discussion. So please drop me a message on my FB if you wish to carry on that. Thanks.
Sunshinemom,
ReplyDeleteA goshala that rescues injured animals from the streets or were rescused from being sent to slaughter houses is our neighbour. There are close to 600 cows in this goshala. The dung that we use would be close to 20 Kg for 220 apartments for 1 week.
For human faecal matter, , 7 billion people's shit along with the dung of the cattle and pooh of the dogs we raise and those on streets could be converted into electricity .. if every govt allows to transport faecal matter to a plant that can produce electricity or produce electricity in the locality we can get rid of the current system of septic tanks . Generating electricity from human feacal matter could turn into an alternative to cutting forests for coal -forests that are home to Tigers, chitals and all living species that sustain water and air security for this planet.
But right now, I am not aware of how much pooh paste would be required to generate how much electricity !! Anyone who has the data are welcome to add their comments..
@Meera:
ReplyDeleteI have personally visited the gaushala you are talking about right after I visited you guys last time I was in bangalore. And I agree they are good guys. My comment was not at all questioning the case of NGV per se. I wanted to raise the question on a larger plain and thought that people would have some other alternative. May be I started of impulsively. I have been talking to some of the people into organic farming that I know. Someone put it very nicely "When there is an use of animals, abuse follows." I hope to come up with some better solution one day.
meear Its nice Blog,
ReplyDeleteI like the word u used " arm chair Environmetalists" . Great going !!!