Some considerations...

In one of the classes with Dr. Allen she told us (Cody, a PhD student, and me) something really interesting: the main difference between Grazing system and Grazing method. It is simple! The system is unique, you cannot transfer it to any other place, even when this place is similar and you can’t expect that it will work the same way if you don’t adapt it. It is like this because the system is composed by many parts that work together as an engine. The goal is that each part of this system (lets call them gears) has a particular characteristic from the place where it comes from. And the most important thing is that the gears are biological process, climate, soil, animals, people (employees), market and costumers, which means that every place that you go you will have to know the methods to create a system adapted to this region. The methods are each gear of the system and knowing them means knowing in details how they operate and what are the options if the gear being used doesn’t fit in the big context and makes the system slow down. For example, if you learn how a grazing system works here in Texas and try to bring it back to Brazil there is no way of it to work, but if you know the grazing methods that can be used instead of this one in the “model” (like continuous stocking, rotational stocking, creep grazing, strip grazing,…), it’s easy to adapt them and create a new whole system. The same goes to the way of working (managing): culture is an important factor that cannot be easily changed but you can work on that and reach a balance between what the system requires and what you have available to establish an order. Than you can slowly change to what it requires.
The interaction among the system is really interesting because if you change one gear, the engine can stop, can run faster, can slow down or it can even brake. This gear can change the whole system or can do nothing (can increase or decrease the production costs that bring a different reaction and affect another part of the system). It can change just a part of the whole system and it also can change the interaction among the other parts of it. Because of that it is important to know and learn what you have and how to change it (possibilities and consequences). You have to know how each part particularly works (that is why it is important to study morphology, ecology, sociology, physiology and all those “boring” courses that we have on graduation).
Before I coming here there where some people (not just now in this trip but every time I said that I would like to go studying abroad) that unfortunately asked me things like that: “why I was going out if the things that I would learn outside cannot be brought to our reality, otherwise it would not work” or “things there are different” or “why are you wasting your time if you can stay and work here”. They probably had seen someone that has been to a foreign country and brought a model of production from there (the whole system) and didn’t adapted to their new reality so it didn’t work. I hope that, now, those people can understand why I am here, to learn more and to find the way succeeds!