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]

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]

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. They set out to tackle both the agro-ecological challenge of sustainability by reversing soil erosion and soil degradation, and the economic challenge of remaining financially viable without federal commodity subsidies. [...more]

While growth in the organic industry has slowed, U.S. consumers are not giving up on organic food. Organic sales, which expanded at a rate of 20 percent per year from the early 1990s through 2007, likely experienced negative growth in 2009. But 31 percent of U.S. families bought more organic food in 2009 than in 2008. [...more]

Robust local and regional food systems offer social, environmental and economic benefits. Increasingly, wholesale buyers are demanding locally grown food and growers are looking for new regional markets. To develop informed business development strategies for Wisconsin farmers and other supply chain start-ups, the UW-Madison Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) and UW-Extension Agricultural Innovation Center studied and documented eleven models of regional food aggregation and distribution. [...more]

Case studies of four innovative enterprises—Country Natural Beef, CROPP/Organic Valley, Shepherd’s Grain and Red Tomato—offer models of how mid-sized farms and ranches can prosper through producing and selling high-quality, differentiated food products into a variety of markets. [...more]

This report provides background information for farmers who are considering selling their products through retail stores. Is retail the right option for you and your products? How can you prepare yourself and your products for sale? What do buyers need, and what do they like and dislike about locally produced goods? This report can help [...] [...more]

Printer-friendly version (PDF) Home Grown Wisconsin (HGW) is a cooperative wholesale business located in south-central Wisconsin that markets produce from member farms to restaurants in nearby cities. Its goal is to expand the market for fresh produce through professional distribution of high quality products that convey the quality, variety and value of Wisconsin’s harvest. Other farms [...] [...more]

A small but growing group of consumers is paying attention to the health benefits of milk and meat from animals raised on pasture. Meat and milk from grazed ruminants have higher levels of "good fat" than ruminants fed stored feeds. Conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, is one of those "good fats." Some people claim that CLA can inhibit the growth of cancerous tumors, enhance immunity, reduce cholesterol, and replace fat with muscle. Can dairy farmers raising cows on pasture capitalize on these health claims with specialty cheese? [...more]

Retail produce buyers in Minneapolis, MN and Madison, WI were interviewed to see if there are opportunities for small-scale growers of certificed organic produce. Produce buyers considered organic produce to be good quality, appealing to customers who want to help protect the earth. Buyer’s views of their relationship with growers, changing sources of [...] [...more]