Srila Prabhupada: “If you open farm for financial help, then it will not be successful. You should take to farming for supporting yourself. That's all. Grow your own food. Grow your own cloth. There is no need of financial help from outside. You get your food grains sufficiently, rice, dahl, wheat, vegetables, milk, sugar. Bas. You get everything. From these five, six items you should be economically free. That you have to do, not for trade to get money. Then it will be failure.

Indian lady (3): Can we purchase the house for our own staying?

Prabhupada: Yes. Because this is necessary. You must have some shelter; you must eat; you must cover. That is necessary. So you do it. Grow food first of all to feed yourself sumptuously. You must get strength, and that is needed. But not for trade. The policy should be that you should be self-sufficient and save time for advancing in Krsna consciousness. That is wanted. Yavad-artha prayojanam. Yuktahara-viharasya yogo bhavati siddhi-dah. You shall eat whatever you require for proper upkeep of the body, not eating too much and sleeping whole day. Don't do that. Eat only what is absolutely necessary. Then you'll never be in want. People are engaged in material civilization means they are increasing the bodily demands, unnecessary. Just like this park. Why we have come to this park? We like this atmosphere.

So similarly, in villages, everyone, if he has got some land, he can live simply without any gorgeous building. What is the use? Just have a cottage and have garden. You'll live very peacefully. But they're constructing big, big skyscraper building in the downtown, and they will have to come here by car for some peace of mind, and in the meantime, accident, police. This is the civilization, nonsense civilization. At weekend they will go to the village, country, and during the week-time they will work hard. This is their civilization, with the risk of life, running motor car eighty miles' speed. Every moment there is risk. What is this civilization? Most ludicrous civilization.

So farming means if you live in a farm... Just like in New Vrindaban they are doing. Produce your own food, live peacefully, fresh vegetable, fresh grains, fresh milk, and prepare so many nice milk preparation, kachori, halava with ghee. Offer to the Deity. Eat sufficiently. What is the use of going outside? Simple life and chant Hare Krsna. If you can organize that, that will be very nice.” (Nairobi, October 28, 1975)

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Rural communities can take a lot of money to establish, but if we simply engage in trying to make money, we lose our original purpose.  It can be challenging to manage a small economy, and there may be specific crops in excess of what can be used in a particular community; which therefore should be sold on the market. But according to Srila Prabhupada, deliberately producing excess for the sole purpose of making money “will be failure”.

Different statements by Srila Prabhupada can be found on nearly every subject.   But when various statements are all considered, the intent becomes clear. For example, he also said that farm communities could provide produce for the city restaurants, but that is not a contradiction to this principle of self-sufficiency. If there is excess then this can be done, but a rural community should not be developed for that particular purpose. 

Each community will require some amount of money for certain ongoing expenses in relation to modern society, such as property taxes, and purchasing some things that cannot otherwise be obtained. However, there are other ways to involve the general public that can generate the amount of funds needed, which is described in other sections of the website.

Next - On Teaching Sustainable Lifestyles