Eric Sheffer is Dairy Grazing Alliance's (DGA) Board President and a fifth-generation dairy grazing farmer. Eric joined the DGA board in 2018.

The Sheffer farm has been owned and operated by the Sheffer family for six generations, since 1774. Eric and his dad, Wally Sheffer, started Sheffer's Grassland Dairy in 2008. Today, Eric runs the 430-acre organic farm with his own family, grazing animals including dairy cows.

The farm has always been part of the dairy industry, but for most of Eric's childhood it operated as a custom heifer growing operation. Growing up, Eric was always interested in the family farm, but after he went to college it was the prospect of dairy grazing that brought him back. While his dad wasn't raising dairy cows at the time, both he and Eric's interest in grazing grew as they learned about it through meetings, tours and Graze magazine. By 2008, now under Eric's management, the Sheffer farm resumed milking, grazing 100 dairy cows and more than doubling its size within six years.

Eric joined the DGA board because of his belief in DGA and the dairy grazing industry. He hopes the organization creates a clearer path for dairy grazing farmers. He appreciates how DGA is addressing labor challenges by developing the workforce needed to support the dairy grazing industry.