This case study shares the experience of one Wisconsin farmer who has been growing cover crops on his cash grain farm for twenty years. He presents his philosophy of cover crop use, explains what cover crop management practices have and have not worked on his farm, and describes what benefits he sees from growing cover crops. [...more]

Want to grow your passion for growing flowers into a small business? The 2012 Wisconsin Cut Flower Growers School is a two-day workshop designed to help people who have that goal in mind. The workshop will be held February 18–19 on the UW-Madison campus. [...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]

Environmental sociologist Michael Bell has been named director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS), a multi-disciplinary research and outreach program that focuses on developing sustainable production and marketing strategies for small to medium-sized agricultural and food enterprises. [...more]

Wisconsin is seeing a renewed interest in planting cover crops to prevent soil erosion, retain or add nutrients, reduce pest pressures and accomplish other goals. [...more]

A mix of casual gardeners and farmers who make a living in part through crop sales met at Tom and Mary Lou Nicholls’s Nature Education Center in Fifield to learn about native pollinators—species that could play a vital role in preserving American agriculture if honeybees continue to see their current levels of decline. (Photo: Hannah Gaines) [...more]

Is there a legume that establishes and yields well, persists and is cost effective? Through on-farm research, Wisconsin beef grazier Jim Munsch set out to answer this important question on his Deer Run Farm. [...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]

Grazing management can affect the prevalence of burdock in pastures. According to a study by UW-Madison researchers, shorter forage heights left in the fall can lead to higher burdock populations in the following growing season. [...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]