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While the United States has built its current dairy industry by aggregating farms, often pasture-based, into larger operations on concentrated feedlots, countries around the world have very different approaches to owning and managing herds. Whether through the persistence of traditional practices, cultural evolution through social change or outside influence, or the infusion of new scientific knowledge, dairy production systems are as varied as the languages and cultures of the individuals who engage in them. In Morocco, large numbers of three-cow farms produce 90% of the country's domestic milk supply and employ 70% of its population. Farmers are considering rain-fed sorghum and legume silage mixes instead of thirsty corn. In the northern highlands of Nicaragua, dairies struggle with delayed rainfall and poor market connections but have opportunities for improved silvopastoral management. Each place and system may hold an important lesson that can be adapted and used in another part of the world. Climate change, a growing global middle class that demands more meat and dairy products, , and pressures on available grazing land necessitate not only diverse approaches, but sharing and adapting those approaches to improve efficiency, protect natural resources, and sustain livelihoods. Consumer demand for grass-fed dairy and beef products is changing the way that land is managed in the United States. The challenges and successes of smaller scale producers around the world could help inform these changing management practices. A contrasting case study of small dairy producers in Nicaragua and Morocco highlights ways this process can happen.