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]

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]

From farmers’ markets to supermarkets, there is a spectrum of relationships between consumers and the businesses that grow, process, distribute and market their food. Small-scale, local food production is often contrasted with the anonymity of global, industrial food production, resulting in a black and white portrayal of local and global food systems. In reality, the food system is far more complex than local versus global and artisanal versus industrial. [...more]

Raw milk for human consumption that has not been pasteurized is a controversial product. Unpasteurized milk may contain pathogens that can lead to serious illness. Nonetheless, a study led by researchers Özlem Altıok and Michael Bell of the UW-Madison Department of Community and Environmental Sociology found that customers cite improving their health among the top reasons for drinking raw milk. A growing number of consumers feel that pasteurization robs milk of some of its nutritional and health benefits. [...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]

When it comes to local food, Southern Wisconsin is considered a national leader. With farmers’ markets every day of the week, pick-your-own farms, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms, grocery stores and restaurants that offer local fare, the only challenge is deciding where to shop. And that’s really no challenge, thanks to the newly released ninth edition of the Southern Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas. [...more]