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 !
