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]

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]

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]

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]

Is your class or dorm reading the campus common book—In Defense of Food—this fall? Are you looking for people who can bring this book to life and add depth to your discussion? CIAS recently launched a website that can link you to faculty, staff, farmers and entrepreneurs working in sustainable agriculture and food systems. The site also includes links to relevant programs and groups on campus, as well as organizations working across the spectrum of conventional and sustainable agriculture. Visit gobigread.cias.wisc.edu to take advantage of these resources! [...more]

Whether you are cooking at home or enjoying a meal out on the town, the 2009 Southern Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas can steer you to local, sustainably grown food. The 2009 edition will be available for free in Madison and across southern Wisconsin beginning April 18. [...more]

Farmers use a variety of systems to raise healthy animals. Today, most meat in the grocery store or at the local restaurant is from animals that were raised in a feedlot and fed significant amounts of grain in addition to hay and pasture. Grass-fed meat is from animals that are put “out on grass,” or fed a forage diet. [...more]

CIAS staff member Steve Stevenson is co-author of a new book on the crisis faced by mid-scale farms and ranches, and strategies for reviving these operations. Food and the Mid-Level Farm makes it clear that the demise of midsize farms and ranches is not a foregone conclusion and that the renewal of an agriculture of [...] [...more]

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]

If you‘re into locally grown food, southern Wisconsin is a great place to be. With farmers’ markets every day of the week, pick-your-own farms, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms, and grocery stores and restaurants that offer local fare, the only trick is to find them all. And that’s really no trick, thanks to the newly released [...] [...more]