Dear Friends, From my porch I look out over the mango trees of the Ahimsa Farm. I see ragi growing in the front for feeding our shelter animals and I also see a patch of green fodder grass for the cattle. Beyond all these greens I see the hills, bare and black. Every year the local goat herders put fire to the hills and within a few days and nights everything alive and green is burned off. Why????

The goat owners need fresh green grass for their grazing animals as soon as possible when the rain starts in June. Goats are raised with a minimum of costs as they graze outside. The common grounds around the villages provide for this and the goats are able to go up high on the hills where cows cannot go.

Since Puttaparthi has become a district, the population is growing, and there is more demand for meat!

In this illegal act, millions of small animals and other little creatures are roasted and burned, they cannot escape. Countless small trees, trying to come back from last year’s sacrifice don’t have a chance. Larger trees are still standing, blackened, but still clinging to life in despair, hoping the rain will sooth their scorched trunks.

The cost of eating is about so much more than expenses and profit. Just be still and consider this for a moment! — Clementien