Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems

The Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, the Agricultural Innovation Center and UW-Whitewater Small Business Development Center are pleased to announce a new course: “Tilling the Soil of Opportunity: Entrepreneurial Training for Agricultural Business Owners.” Tilling the Soil is a complete business... Read More

Are you considering a new value-added business for your farm? Budgeting tools from the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison can help you make informed decisions about a variety of livestock and specialty food enterprises. CIAS... Read More

For most fresh market vegetable growers, earning a reasonable living from their farms is a bigger challenge than growing produce. While growers often share production information freely, they may be reluctant to share financial information. Many growers are looking for... Read More

Customer demand for high-quality, unique specialty food products is growing rapidly. Many farmers are interested in processing specialty foods from the fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy products and grains they are already producing. Successful specialty food enterprises, however, require careful financial... Read More

Low commodity prices have inspired farmers to look at alternative enterprises, like sheep dairies, to increase their farm incomes. With careful financial planning and management, sheep dairies can make money for farmers. CIAS has developed a spreadsheet to help farmers... Read More

Farms using managed grazing typically produce less milk per cow than confinement farms. However, a series of economic studies in Wisconsin and elsewhere show that, for many dairy farmers, the savings they realize using managed grazing more than offsets... Read More

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Farmers Tony and Dela Ends want their farm to sustain the land and their family. They began selling subscriptions to their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in 1994. They also wanted to successfully integrate livestock production into their farm through a value-added, direct marketing enterprise. Their goal was to do this in ways that respect the scale of a small family farm, satisfy their commitments to stewardship, and eliminate the need for off-farm income.

CIAS has developed a spreadsheet to help farmers make financial and management decisions about new or existing dairy goat enterprises. It is applicable to most kinds and sizes of enterprises. This budget was developed using Microsoft Excel 2000. If you... Read More

Enterprises like pastured poultry can add to farm income with careful financial planning. CIAS has developed a spreadsheet to help farmers make financial and management decisions about new or existing poutry enterprises. While the budget was developed for a CIAS... Read More

Dairy farmers can reduce their purchased inputs without cutting into their profits. An ongoing twelve-year study of two forage rotations similar to those found on Wisconsin dairy farms compared a diversified, low-input system with a less diverse rotation requiring high... Read More

An ongoing financial study of farms that use management intensive rotational grazing (MIRG) shows that generation of income is the main factor separating the farms with the best financial performance from those with the worst financial performance. The graziers with... Read More

Cash grain farmers can improve their bottom line by diversifying crops and reducing chemical inputs, according to a cropping systems trial now in its eighth year of economic analysis. Diversified grain systems at two sites have shown better financial returns... Read More

Community supported agriculture (CSA) farmers need communication and management skills to meet a variety of challenges in building a community of members, balancing income and expenses, marketing their farm, and obtaining training. A multi-professional farmer-led research team including John Hendrickson... Read More

You can find shelves filled with organic produce at natural foods stores and increasingly at supermarkets as well. Who supplies this organic produce? Does it all come from California or is some of it from regional and local farmers? What... Read More

Purchasing calves (stockers) in spring and selling them in the fall as feeder cattle may be a way to convert pasture to profit for those with a surplus of grass but not a lot of facilities. But managing pasture, animals,... Read More

All farm types examined here, particularly the low and medium investment farms with high levels of debt, may find an expansion involving sweat equity to be the best option for them.—Rick Klemme Grazing-based dairy farmers considering expanding their herds and... Read More

Many successful graziers, confident in their grazing and management skills, are now asking: Will an expansion pay for a labor-saving parlor within a modified seasonal calving system to allow me and my family a better of quality of life? Probably,... Read More

What we're seeing is a little extra money from grazing while putting in a little less labor. -- Gary Frank How can dairy farmers make their time worth more? A study sponsored by the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS)... Read More