CIAS is part of a national task force working to renew what is being called the “agriculture of the middle.” This term refers to a disappearing sector of mid-scale farms and related agrifood enterprises that are unable to successfully market bulk agricultural commodities or sell food directly to consumers. This project has produced a set of
Values-Based Food Supply Chain Case Studies and
Value Chain Teaching Materials, among other publications. For more information, contact
Steve Stevenson or visit the
Agriculture of the Middle web site.
Values-Based Food Suppy Chain Case Study: Country Natural Beef
Country Natural Beef started with 14 ranching families marketing 200 head of natural beef cattle in 1987. In recent years, the cooperative has nearly 100 member ranches in multiple states that raise more than 100,000 brood cows, manage more than 6 million acres of land and sell almost $50 million of products. [...more]
Values-Based Food Supply Chain Case Study: Good Earth Farms
Begun in 2005 by Mike and Deb Hansen in central Wisconsin, Good Earth Farms
includes five operations that sell nearly all of their certified organic meat through the internet. [...more]
Values-Based Food Supply Chain Case Study: Shepherd’s Grain
In the mid 1980s, a pair of wheat producers, Karl Kupers and Fred Fleming, became convinced that the conventional dryland wheat farming they were practicing was not sustainable in the Palouse region of eastern Washington. [...more]
Values-Based Food Supply Chain Case Study: Organic Valley
In 1988, a small group of organic vegetable growers in Wisconsin formed a cooperative to provide stable and fair prices to its members. It evolved into Organic Valley, the largest organic, farmer-owned cooperative in North America. [...more]
Values-Based Food Supply Chain Case Study: Co-op Partners Warehouse
Co-op Partners Warehouse was established in 1999 by the Wedge Natural Foods Co-op in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This certified organic wholesale distribution warehouse serves retail stores, food service businesses and buying clubs throughout the Upper Midwest. [...more]
Values-Based Food Supply Chain Case Study: Idaho’s Bounty
Idaho’s Bounty was founded in 2007 as a cooperative with both customer and producer members. It provides logistical support for a direct-to-consumer, Internet-based food buying club. [...more]
Value Chain Teaching Materials
The national Agriculture of the Middle initiative has produced three sets of curricular resources on value-based food supply chains for university-level business and economics courses. [...more]
The Driftless Region Food and Farm Project
The Driftless Region Food and Farm Project is a coalition of farmers, consumers, institutions, agencies and organizations. Together, they aspire to meet the growing demand for local food by scaling up the production, aggregation, processing, distribution and marketing of food in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. [...more]
Mid-scale food value chains case study: Red Tomato (Research Brief #82)
Michael Rozyne, one of the creators of the international fair trade company Equal Exchange, founded an organization called Red Tomato in 1996. The goals for Red Tomato were to develop a dual purpose non-profit to market sustainably grown fruits and vegetables in the Northeast, and to provide consulting services for regional food system development nationwide. This research brief focuses on the first goal. [...more]
Mid-scale food value chains case study: Country Natural Beef (Research Brief #79)
In 1986, 14 Oregon ranchers formed a cooperative—Country Natural Beef—to escape the roller-coaster cycles of the commodity cattle market and achieve predictable, relatively stable, premium prices. For its rancher members, simply changing their mindset from producing for a commodity market to producing for a final consumer was a major challenge that paid off. [...more]