Video Information: 29.09.23, IIT-Madras (Online), Greater Noida
Description:
In this insightful video, Acharya Ji tackles the controversy surrounding the shift from dairy to plant-based milk, addressing concerns about job losses in the dairy industry. He argues that while employment is important, not all jobs are ethically justified, using the analogy of pickpockets to illustrate his point. Acharya Ji emphasizes that the visible losses in dairy farming often overshadow the broader economic benefits of transitioning to greener technologies. He advocates for the plant-based sector as a viable and ethical alternative, highlighting its potential for health, economic efficiency, and spiritual alignment. Ultimately, he encourages entrepreneurs to produce affordable, high-quality plant-based products to meet growing consumer demand.
Context:
~Are you ready to explore the benefits of switching to plant-based milk?
~Do you think plant-based products can taste just as good as dairy?
~Could switching to plant-based foods save you money in the long run?
~Can plant-based milk truly replace dairy without sacrificing quality?
~What hidden benefits might we overlook in the shift to plant-based diets?
~How can we balance job security in dairy with the rise of plant-based alternatives?
~How can we make plant-based options more accessible to everyone?
Music Credits: Milind Date
➖➖➖
#acharyaprashant #plantbasedprotein #veganism
Description:
In this insightful video, Acharya Ji tackles the controversy surrounding the shift from dairy to plant-based milk, addressing concerns about job losses in the dairy industry. He argues that while employment is important, not all jobs are ethically justified, using the analogy of pickpockets to illustrate his point. Acharya Ji emphasizes that the visible losses in dairy farming often overshadow the broader economic benefits of transitioning to greener technologies. He advocates for the plant-based sector as a viable and ethical alternative, highlighting its potential for health, economic efficiency, and spiritual alignment. Ultimately, he encourages entrepreneurs to produce affordable, high-quality plant-based products to meet growing consumer demand.
Context:
~Are you ready to explore the benefits of switching to plant-based milk?
~Do you think plant-based products can taste just as good as dairy?
~Could switching to plant-based foods save you money in the long run?
~Can plant-based milk truly replace dairy without sacrificing quality?
~What hidden benefits might we overlook in the shift to plant-based diets?
~How can we balance job security in dairy with the rise of plant-based alternatives?
~How can we make plant-based options more accessible to everyone?
Music Credits: Milind Date
➖➖➖
#acharyaprashant #plantbasedprotein #veganism
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Talking about the recent PETA and this controversy between a dairy producer, so people are saying
00:15that lakhs of people are going to lose employment if they switch to plant-based milk.
00:20So what do you have to say about this?
00:24See the employment argument, I appreciate it, but it is not absolute in itself.
00:35In fact, the employment argument can be stretched to absurd extremes.
00:43I could say pickpockets are employed in their own industry, the pickpocketing industry.
00:52Why are you arresting them, it's an industry, why are you arresting them?
00:58You are making several hundreds, if not thousands or lakhs lose employment.
01:07By no means am I saying that a dairy farmer is a pickpocket, please don't take it to that
01:20level.
01:21But what I am saying is that are all means of employment really permissible, legally,
01:32ethically, whichever way you want to look at it.
01:38If the employment argument is absolute in itself, then anything that helps a man earn
01:44money should be permissible.
01:49Then why do we, for example, punish tax defaulters, he is just trying to make some money for himself,
02:01just as the butcher is trying to make money for himself.
02:06So just because something, some activity yields money to somebody, that does not mean that
02:14the activity is okay, otherwise there are a thousand debauched ways of earning money,
02:20making money, we would have to allow each single one of them.
02:25So firstly this is about the argument that, because whenever you want to take a corrective
02:32step, there is always this argument that is thrown at you, that this will lead to loss
02:39of livelihood.
02:41If you want to switch to a greener technology, not much to do with veganism, but let's say
02:47you want to switch to a greener technology, then people will say the old technology was
02:52manpower intensive, so there were so many who were earning their bread from it, now
02:56you have switched to a technology that is more automated, so loss of livelihood, loss
03:00of livelihood, this kind of thing.
03:04If you do anything progressive, it is generally believed that it leads to loss of livelihood
03:10and prima facie it does.
03:14But when you look at the complete picture, when you zoom out a little and you look at
03:21the complete picture, you find that it is not leading to lack of employment, because
03:25if it is actually a new technology, a better way of living, it is leading to an overall
03:32increase of efficiency in the economy.
03:37So in many many other ways, it will lead to employment generation, the problem here is
03:44the loss of employment happens in one localized area, in one localized segment, so for example
03:51those who earn through dairy, they lose money, so that is very visible and some zealous reporter
03:59can go and create a documentary and say, you know, you look at this, his name is something,
04:06Mr. Pankaj Singh, Pankaj Singh had 40 buffalos and he used to earn so much per month and
04:13now he is not making that money.
04:17So now one particular individual, he has lost money and that is visible, but there would
04:23be a thousand people who would have marginally increased their incomes, that would not be
04:31visible, are you getting it?
04:34Because the overall efficiency of the system has increased, you see one person has lost
04:3910,000 rupees a month, that is very very visible and it becomes a localized thing, the tragedy
04:48now has a human face, the face is of Mr. Pankaj Singh and you can say Pankaj Singh was lost
04:53a lot of money, Pankaj Singh has lost 10k, 10,000, there are thousand others, 1,000 others
05:00who each have gained 50 rupees each, so how much is the gain, 50,000, how much is the
05:07loss, 10,000, but that 50,000 gain is distributed among 1,000 people, so it is not a big story,
05:15it is not sensational, no, it is not sensational at all, no reporter will go and make a story
05:22out of somebody adding just 5% to his income, just 50 rupees has been added to that fellow's
05:30income, it is not an exciting story, but one fellow losing 10,000 is a big story, what
05:35we fail to see is that in a nutshell, on the total, there is a gain and if there is a gain,
05:48what can be done, all those fellows who have gained 50 rupees, can rupees 5 or 10 be collected
05:58from them and Mr. Pankaj Singh be subsidized, now what has happened, all those fellows who
06:06have gained, they have gained rupees 50 each, since they have gained rupees 50 each, you
06:13collect rupees 10 from each of them and feed Mr. Pankaj, now Mr. Pankaj stands at a point
06:21of no loss and all those other people stand at a point of gain of rupees 40, everybody
06:27has gained, everybody has gained, are you getting it, so that kind of thing can be done,
06:33but this is a classical problem in economics, losses are localized, so they are very visible,
06:44the gains are scattered and long term, so they are not easily visible, be it something
06:50like GST or whatever, the trouble that you face, the pain that you face is immediate
06:58and it has a human face, whereas the benefits that you get are distributed and long term,
07:07so they do not make for an exciting and sellable story, so they don't get popularized and that's
07:14the trouble governments and reformers all over the world face, whenever they want to
07:20do something progressive, this is the argument that is hurled at them, this is going to lead
07:25to loss of livelihood and loss of employment and such things.
07:35So even the European Union has banned the use of term milk for plant milk producers
07:41in Europe and European area basically, so similar trend is being seen in India also
07:46and now I think FSSAI notification is going to come in very soon on this, so do you think
07:53that there must be some efforts from the government side also to push this sector,
07:57the plant-based sector and the companies in this?
08:03If you have an enlightened leader, that would happen, but even if you do not have a very
08:10enlightened leader, why do you wait for the government policies, please tell me, plant-based
08:18products are anyway more economical to produce, you do not even require government subsidy,
08:30I am very closely associated with a firm that is bringing in plant-based products, not in
08:41a commercial sense, but I have been mentoring them in a spiritual way you could say, so
08:49I know for sure how inexpensive it is, I know for sure that if you tell the population that
08:58what I am serving to you with fortified ingredients has all the goodness of milk at one third
09:08the price, at one fifth the price, people will take it, maybe initially there would
09:14be some reluctance, some suspicion, but gradually the thing would ease into their systems, so
09:22you do not even need positive government policy interventions, you do not need that, all you
09:28need is willpower and the resolve to bring it to the masses and make money, it's something
09:41that can succeed even commercially, so it's a good combination where you have ethics on
09:49your side, where you have spirituality on your side and where you also have commercial
09:54gain on your side and all this can be put into one, it's a fantastic opportunity for
09:59entrepreneurial advances.
10:00Okay, so talking about this, soya is the most widely consumed food by vegans in different
10:08forms and most of the soya that comes into India and in other places is all GMO, so people
10:15say that it's harmful for health and there are lot of, basically they have reservations
10:19about it, what do you have to say about that?
10:22If it indeed is genetically modified, then it's a great opportunity for someone to produce
10:32organic or natural soya without any genetic interventions in it and market it, it need
10:42not be GM soya, right?
10:46So, basically Indian farmers need to, they have lot of opportunities, obviously, I don't
10:53know whether you have done the numbers on this, but you will be surprised at how inexpensive
10:59the whole thing comes out to be, in fact when I said I have mentored one concern, I have
11:06actually mentored two of them and one of them actually supplies tofu and dahi and rassi,
11:18all of these vegan to this place and it was just last week or sometime, I was scrolling
11:27the conversations that people here had with him on a group and the entire load that he
11:36had delivered, this much, was for some 500 bucks something, 500 rupees and this much
11:45stuff and you taste it, it's wonderful and you look at the minerals, vitamins and all
11:54other stuff it has, proteins, it's again wonderful, the economic argument is in favour of it,
12:05the health argument is in favour of it, the spiritual argument favours it, why would then
12:10anybody deny it, people do care for their pocket, don't they?
12:18You know what, very silently, tofu is anyway creeping into our diets, there are lot of
12:33these eateries, tofu is being used in large quantities, why because it is cheaper compared
12:43to paneer, so they are using tofu and it tastes equally good and it's not at all differentiable,
12:52otherwise their customers would have complained, the nutrition is fantastic, the taste is equally
13:02good, why did you know how to cook and all that, the process is different, so that's the argument
13:10that probably will help a lot in the economics, but even for that the entrepreneur has to
13:19ensure that the pricing is right, if you look at the biggest soy brands in the country who
13:32sell soy milk and all, I find their pricing just not optimal, the result will be that
13:41they will be able to skim a lot of cream, make a lot of money for themselves, but will
13:51fail in expanding the market, the market size will remain small, so they will have a small
14:00customer base, but with large margins, so in total they will be able to make some money,
14:10which I think is a bad deal, it's far better to expand the market by lowering the prices.