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Projects

The goal of the Center's research program is to learn how particular integrated farming systems can contribute to environmental, economic, social, and intergenerational sustainability. Our research has shown that farmers can cut costs, increase profits, and improve their quality of life while enhancing the environment.

Through our research projects, we aim to help farmers capture a larger share of the consumer food dollar. Part of our work is to develop and assess visions of alternative food systems and look at the socioeconomics of the existing food system.

Our research program is unique because of our commitment to involve citizens and academics, representing many disciplines and professions, as equal partners on our research teams.

While our work benefits small and medium size farms, many of our research projects can help any farm or food-related business, regardless of scale.

Our current work includes:

Pasture-Based Farming: Research on the status of managed grazing in Wisconsin and important questions raised by graziers.

Soil Fertility Strategies on Organic Vegetable Farms: This project is documenting soil fertility practices used by organic vegetable growers in Wisconsin and Illinois, and will provide a framework for instituting organic plots on University research farms.

Participatory Research and Plant Breeding for Sustainable Production Systems: This project is addressing current limitations in seed production and is beginning a participatory breeding project for sustainable and organic production systems.

Renewing an Agriculture of the Middle: A national initiative to renew disappearing mid-scale farms, ranches, and related agrifood enterprises.

Community Supported Agriculture: Research on CSA farm management, including economics, scale, and member involvement and education.

Eco-Fruit Project: Field and policy work come together to help apple, cherry and berry growers ugrade pest management tools and reduce pesticide risk.

Organic Research Initiative: Increasing the number of research and outreach projects at UW that benefit organic farmers.

Training and Research for Beginning Farmers: Training programs for beginning dairy farmers and market growers, and research on farm entry.

Value-Added Enterprise Budgets: User-friendly software packages for farmers to evaluate the economics of their value-added enterprises.

Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch: A farm-to-school program bringing local food and farmers into Madison's public schools.

Sustainable Agriculture Curriculum: A free curriculum that addresses the social, environmental and economic impacts of agriculture.

Specialty Cheese in Wisconsin: A baseline study of Wisconsin’s specialty cheese industry, including characteristics of profitable, competitive businesses.

Farm Fresh Atlas: A guide to farms and food-related businesses that sell their products directly to customers in southern Wisconsin.

Sustaining Local Food Systems in a Globalizing Environment: Wisconsin's work on this national project has focused on specialty cheese, pastured poultry, and the sourcing of locally grown food by public schools.

Sustainable Woods Cooperative Case Study: A profile of a woodland owners’ cooperative that closed its operations.

F.H. King Student Organic Garden: Support for a student-operated garden on the UW-Madison campus.

Troy Gardens: Participatory research on a community owned and managed urban agriculture project on Madison's north side.

A few of our past projects include:

Home Grown Wisconsin: CIAS tracked the development of this local marketing cooperative based in southern Wisconsin.

Pesticide Use and Risk Reduction: Addressing the impacts of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) on Wisconsin commodities and producers, including methods for sustainable apple production.

Profit by Planning: Case study on the use of financial ratios by fresh market vegetable growers. Data was also collected on direct marketing and quality of life on vegetable farms.

Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial: Systems research measuring the profitability, productivity and environmental impacts of six cropping systems.

Pastured Poultry: An investigation of the potential contribution of pastured poultry systems to farms in the upper Midwest.

The College Food Project: Colleges and universities using their buying power to support Wisconsin farms.

Echinacea as a Tobacco Crop Alternative: Research on the emerging echinacea market, as well as the crop's suitability for tobacco growers.

Consumer Messages for Marketing Grass-Fed Animal Products: Evaluation of messages that consumers associate with pasture-based beef, pork, dairy and poultry products.

Survey of Community Kitchen Incubators: Results of a national survey of community kitchen organizers.

Growing Power/CIAS Student Internships: A student exchange between Growing Power, a Milwaukee-based urban food organization, and UW-Madison.

Harmony Valley Compost Project: Farmer Richard DeWilde worked with UW researchers to learn if application of composted dairy and goat manures would increase crop health and yield.