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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

For a wide variety of economic, environmental and social reasons, it makes good sense to regard the practice of managed grazing as an effective system for strengthening dairy and livestock farming in Wisconsin. The UW-Madison Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) partnered with GrassWorks, Inc. to develop a statewide, participatory discussion about managed grazing that they called “Blue Sky Greener Pastures” (BSGP). [...more]

The Price Tags/Cost tags are a great way for consumers to learn about the environmental, social and health costs behind many commonly eaten foods. Recently updated tags on hamburger, potatoes, sweet corn and tomatoes describe some of the hidden costs for these popular foods. [...more]

Farm to school encourages healthy lifestyles in children and helps support local economies. The Wisconsin Farm to School Toolkits for school nutrition directors and producers can help you create a successful farm to school program in your community. [...more]

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]

For over 20 years, the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, or CIAS, has been a leader in sustainable agriculture research and outreach at UW-Madison. We’ve been working on farm to school since 2002. Our current efforts include: [...more]