THORNY PROBLEMS - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 128

The strategic shift in thinking for this group of pastoralists stems from their
espousal of an alternative approach developed by a private business called the
Grazing for Profit (GfP) school. This school draws on the ideas and philosophy of
Alan Savory, a pastoralist from Zimbabwe, who developed the 'cell grazing'
technique based on his observations of wild ungulate behaviour on the savannahs
of southern Africa. One member described cell-grazing as 'an intensive system of
rotational grazing, utilising the tools of stock density, feed utilisation, and rest to
enhance natural ecosystems' (Pastoralist A, interviews, 2007). Simply put, it means
that instead of leaving cattle to graze extensively on large paddocks, they graze
intensively for short periods of time across a number of smaller paddocks. The cell-
grazing system is not unlike what traditional herders and shepherds have done in
Africa and elsewhere. However, this new conceptualisation of traditional herding
as cell-grazing has gained purchase with a number of pastoralists in Australia and
the USA who had previously practised 'uncontrolled', extensive grazing. 4
The need for strategic redirection for these pastoralists arose because they found
their businesses were becoming increasingly unviable. They were 'just surviving' or
had reached the point of being 'sick of constantly battling against the land' (Pastoralists
A, K, Ji and T, interviews, 2007). When they looked for alternative ways of
improving their business and encountered the GfP approach, they felt that it provided
a new framework which interlinked environmental, social, economic and personal
challenges and made them realise that 'we need to stop blaming the governments and
the weather and look at managing what we have' (Pastoralist A, interviews, 2007).
The GfP approach resonated with them because they could use Savory's metaphor
of the landscape as a continuum ranging from brittle to non-brittle, to match
observations of soil and grass quality on their properties and use this information to
fine-tune their pasture and grazing strategies. Some members explained the new
approach to 'grass farming' by drawing parallels with raising lawns, using cattle as
natural lawnmowers and fertilisers. Although cell-grazing is more labour-intensive
than extensive grazing due to the need for animals to be moved every three or four
days depending on grass growth in each paddock, the technique worked well
alongside other strategies such as Low Stress Stock Management (LSS), which are
aimed at producing healthier cattle for higher quality beef. One respondent said she
regularly 'walked the weaners' so that they felt comfortable with people and dogs
while being moved from one paddock to another (Pastoralist K, interviews, 2007).
They noted that cell-grazing and LSS enabled them to think differently about
producing healthy pastures and healthy animals from existing landscapes (Pastoralists
A, K, Ji, T, and Jo, interviews, 2007). One pastoralist who was an avid spokesman
for the approach described the benefits on a national television program, saying:
I can see just the change that comes upon us when we make some mental
changes in our attitude . . . what we are doing changes . . . And it's pretty
rewarding when you can work with the land and the animals and the people
in harmony.
(Lindsay, 2001)