Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems

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 the middle will benefit all participants in the food system—from growers to consumers. The book's authors include activists, practitioners, and scholars from a variety of disciplines. They consider ways midsize farms can regain vitality by scaling up aspects of small farms' operations to connect with consumers, organizing together to develop markets for their products, developing food supply chains that preserve farmer identity and are based on fair business agreements, and promoting public policies that address agriculture-of-the-middle issues.

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. Their goal is to raise endowment funds and visibility for the school and its mission of supporting a next generation of Wisconsin farmers.