Prabhupada 1042 - I See in Your Mauritius, You Have Got Enough Land to Produce Food Grains



751002 - Lecture SB 07.05.30 - Mauritius

So these things are to be noted, how they are engaged in sinful activities. And the solution is given in the Bhagavad-gītā, that "Produce food grain." Annād bhavanti bhūtāni (BG 3.14). So I see in your this Mauritius land, you have got enough land to produce food grains. So you produce food grain. I understand that instead of growing food grains, you are growing sugarcane for exporting. Why? And you are dependent on food grains, on rice, wheat, ḍāl. Why? Why this attempt? You first of all grow your own eatables. And if there is time and if your population has got sufficient food grains, then you can try to grow other fruits and vegetables for exporting. The first necessity is that you should be self-sufficient. That is God's arrangement. Everywhere there is sufficient land to produce food grains. Not only in your country; I have traveled all over the world—Africa, Australia, and other, in America also. There are so much land vacant that if we produce food grain, then we can feed ten times as much population as at the present moment. There is no question of scarcity. The whole creation is so made by Kṛṣṇa that everything is pūrṇam, complete. Pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate, pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate (Īśo Invocation). If we don't produce food grain—you require it—and put unnecessarily men into scarcity, that is sinful. That is sinful.