Vance Haugen’s career has combined decades of farming with educational leadership. As a retired Extension educator and active farmer, he has promoted grass-based farming and sustainable systems across the Midwest and beyond.
Haugen’s service to SARE spans many years, including his tenure on the North Central Region SARE (NCR-SARE) Administrative Committee from 2002 to 2003 and his long-term dedication to the Wisconsin SARE Advisory Committee from 2005 to 2017.
During his career with the University of Wisconsin-Extension, Haugen was a leader in helping farmers adopt managed grazing. He initiated a grazing network in Crawford County, Wisconsin, and was instrumental in developing additional networks across the region. He taught numerous workshops, coordinated hundreds of pasture walks, and provided critical technical and emotional one-on-one support to dairy and livestock farmers transitioning to grass-based systems. A notable accomplishment in Haugen’s Extension career was forming and leading the UW-Extension Low-Cost Dairy Systems Team. At a time when mainstream industry experts were advising dairy producers to "get big or get out," Haugen offered a viable third option for family-scale operations. The team helped producers design and build low-cost milking parlors, enabling them to remain profitable while reducing physical strain. Along with this work, Haugen famously created a compelling visual display comparing the cost of various milking parlors to pickup trucks, showing that a $10,000 milking parlor was just as attainable and life-changing as a $10,000 truck. He retired in 2018.
Haugen not only advocates for managed grazing but has practical experience with it. He and his wife, Bonnie, ran a successful grass-based dairy near Canton, Minnesota. Recently, they transferred the operation to their son, Olaf. The Haugen family farm has hosted many pasture walks and has been a formal mentorship site for farmers in the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship Program.
Haugen has worked with farmers in multiple states and abroad. As a volunteer, he has visited countries such as Nicaragua and Australia to exchange information about managed grazing and affordable dairy systems. Besides his direct involvement with SARE, Haugen has served for several years on the board of GrassWorks, Wisconsin’s statewide managed grazing organization, and on the advisory board for the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers. Throughout his career, he has acted as a trusted mentor to hundreds of farmers and agricultural professionals alike, leaving a lasting legacy on the landscape of sustainable agriculture.
Leaders in sustainable agriculture offered tributes as Haugen was nominated and selected to receive this recognition, including:
- Vance was instrumental to developing the concept of building low-cost parlors that grazers and other farmers could remodel into their old tie stall barns to allow them to transition to grazing systems. In that dairy modernization effort, the farmer could add cows, reduce their labor needs, become more sustainable, and allow the next generation to see that they could dairy farm, and adapt new technology to continue the dairy business for generations to come. - David Kammel, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin
- Vance Haugen is a colorful icon of the sustainable agriculture and managed grazing communities the North Central Region. Never one to shy away from lively discussion, he is known for his aphorism: you’re welcome to disagree, but disagree agreeably! I’ve been honored to be among Vance’s friends and colleagues for these thirty-plus years and I can’t think of a more worthy candidate for the NCR SARE Hero award! As an early adopter of managed grazing on his own dairy farm in SE Minnesota, Vance blends his own personal farming experience with his training as an engineer and his understanding of the power of farmer-to-farmer learning to be an exceptional educator. Vance championed technologies for small scale farmers like retrofitting milking parlors into existing buildings and low-cost biodigesters and took his message all over the world. Although his work impacted people across the North Central Region and beyond, Vance’s heart has always been with the GrassWorks grazing community and with his local grazing network, Great River Graziers, which he founded and continues to support. - Laura Paine, Grazing Outreach Coordinator, University of Wisconsin Extension