The best and most efficient systems come down to maximizing what you take (not wasting) and giving back (not taking for granted) what resources are available to you. I think a lot of systems fail because there are people out there who are in love with the idea of doing something for a cause, see all of the YouTube farmers, want to jump on the green earth bandwagon and only focus on gaining something from their animals and the land essentially living like parasites only ever taking. In reality, a self sufficient and sustaining system is only possible by viewing it as a relationship where you, the land and animals all take and give. For example, I know a couple who started off with almost 50 acres of awesome fertile land and completely depleted it over the years. They took everything from the land, but never gave back. The did not practice rotational grazing of their livestock, they didn't take time to fertilize correctly for their soil type, they didn't even utilize their goats to weed instead they kept the goats in the same 24'x24' pen, they didn't ever plant new grass, they removed trees and always planted their crops in the same fields never rotating them. They went from beautiful green rolling hills of open fields to a muddy, weeded and eroding mess. I also know another couple who had only 10 acres of hard clay soil that for their first couple of years there nothing would grow. They spent their time fertilizing accordingly, weeding, planting local grasses, rotating their garden plots, adding trees near the edges of the gulley and dumped rocks there to help with erosion. Now they have beautiful gardens, thick and lush grass growing everywhere and haven't lost any property to the gulley.
