Education & Training

CIAS coordinates schools for beginning dairy farmers, market growers, apple growers and cut flower growers. We also organize training events for agricultural professionals and play a lead role in the development of sustainable agriculture curriculum materials for high school students. Additionally, we support an organic garden on campus, managed by the F.H. King Students of Sustainable Agriculture.
Ride to Farm 2013

Ride to Farm 2013

The Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers is recruiting cyclists and pledges for its 10th annual Ride to Farm fundraiser on Saturday, June 1 to support the next generation of Wisconsin farmers. [...more]

Wisconsin School for Beginning Market Growers: Jan. 18-20, 2013

Wisconsin School for Beginning Market Growers: Jan. 18-20, 2013

The Wisconsin School for Beginning Market Growers, a three-day workshop for anyone wanting to start a fresh market vegetable farm, will be offered January 18-20, 2013 on the UW-Madison campus. [...more]

Ride to Farm 2012

Ride to Farm 2012

Dozens of cyclists will be riding through the rolling hills of rural Dane and Green counties on Saturday, June 2 in support of the next generation of dairy and livestock farmers. [...more]

Passing Along Farm Knowledge: A Mentor-Intern Handbook for Dairy and Livestock Farmers

Passing Along Farm Knowledge: A Mentor-Intern Handbook for Dairy and Livestock Farmers

This handbook include a wealth of practical information for both mentors and interns. It will help you successfully navigate every step of an on-farm internship including planning and goal setting, scheduling and communication during the internship, ending the internship, and more. [...more]

Value Chain Teaching Materials

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]

Wisconsin College and University Programs and Projects in Sustainable Agriculture

Wisconsin College and University Programs and Projects in Sustainable Agriculture

Wisconsin's colleges and universities offer a variety of classes and programs in sustainable agriculture, from practical skills taught at the technical colleges to a graduate degree in Agroecology at UW-Madison. In addition, student groups at a number of colleges offer non-formal opportunities for learning about and promoting sustainable agriculture. [...more]

Bicyclists Pedal for Pledges to Support Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers

Bicyclists Pedal for Pledges to Support Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers

Friends of the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers will be pedaling for pledges when they roll out Friday, June 13 in the 5th Annual Ride to Farm. A group of determined cyclists will make a three-day trip from a farm near Nichols in Outagamie County to a farm at Elkhorn in Walworth County. [...] [...more]

F.H. King Student Organic Garden

F.H. King Student Organic Garden

F.H. King Students of Sustainable Agriculture is a student organization working to promote sustainable agriculture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Founded in 1979, F.H. King was named after a UW professor and author of the 1911 book Farmers of Forty Centuries. Professor King was one of the first people to consider the sustainability of [...] [...more]

Would You, Should You, Could You?

Participatory research brings professional researchers together with citizen stakeholders to define problems or questions, collect information, and use it to promote change. This publication addresses on-farm participatory research in sustainable agricultural systems, and draws on experiences using this approach for participatory plant breeding research at the UW-Madison. It provides questions to help farmers and researchers [...] [...more]

Cows turn Pasture into Milk

This worksheet, which is geared toward older elementary school children and their teachers, presents basic information about grazing dairy cows. It presents grazing as a feeding alternative that mimics natural systems, protects erodible land, and saves money for farmers. It answers questions children might have about grazing, such as, “What do pastured cows do in [...] [...more]

Events

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CIAS in the community

Farm to School Featured in “Grow”

CIAS farm to school programs—and staff member Sara Tedeschi—are featured in the Spring 2013 issue of CALS Grow magazine. CIAS has been working on farm to school since 2001, and our work has influenced farm to school programs nationwide. Read the article here, or listen to a PodCALS interview with Sara.

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