In 1988, a small group of organic vegetable growers in Wisconsin formed a cooperative to provide stable and fair prices to its members. It evolved into Organic Valley, the largest organic, farmer-owned cooperative in North America.

Co-op Partners Warehouse was established in 1999 by the Wedge Natural Foods Co-op in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This certified organic wholesale distribution warehouse serves retail stores, food service businesses and buying clubs throughout the Upper Midwest.

Idaho’s Bounty was founded in 2007 as a cooperative with both customer and producer members. It provides logistical support for a direct-to-consumer, Internet-based food buying club.

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.

Eating locally is going mainstream. For years, committed eaters have gone out of their way to source local food from farmers’ markets, farms, roadside stands […]

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.

Graziers Rick Adamski and Valerie Dantoin of Seymour received an Honorary Recognition award from the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences on October 27. […]

Printer-friendly version (PDF) Home Grown Wisconsin (HGW) is a cooperative wholesale business located in south-central Wisconsin that markets produce from member farms to restaurants in […]

Can you make a living raising pastured poultry on a large scale? “Yes, but talk to farmers who’ll give you their whole story, including their failures, before you begin,” one producer participating in a 2000 Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) survey advises.

Agricultural lands do more than raise crops-they raise families, provide wildlife habitat, create small business opportunities and jobs, support rural economies, and provide natural beauty […]