Home Grown Wisconsin was a cooperative, multi-farm wholesale and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) food business founded in 1996 in south central Wisconsin. They successfully sold fresh produce to upscale restaurants and CSA customers in the Chicago area for more than 10 years.

Red Tomato is a non-profit organization that carries out marketing and distribution functions for 40 fruit and vegetable farmers, mostly in the northeastern U.S.

Want to learn more about fruits like aronia, currants, Saskatoon, and even jostaberries? CIAS worked with Dale Secher of Carandale Farm to create a website detailing Secher’s 10 years of on-farm research on uncommon fruit crops.

Country Natural Beef started with 14 ranching families marketing 200 head of natural beef cattle in 1987. In recent years, the cooperative has nearly 100 member ranches in multiple states that raise more than 100,000 brood cows, manage more than 6 million acres of land and sell almost $50 million of products.

Begun in 2005 by Mike and Deb Hansen in central Wisconsin, Good Earth Farms
includes five operations that sell nearly all of their certified organic meat through the internet.

The vast majority of dairy cattle in the United States never see the outdoors while they’re lactating. Over 50% of the milk produced in
the US comes from just 1750 large farms, primarily in California, Idaho, New Mexico, and Texas. In contrast, about 22% or more than 3000 of Wisconsin’s dairy farmers use managed grazing. Can the unique features of milk from pastured cows contribute to the resurgence of an artisan dairy tradition?

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.

The Wisconsin Grazing Activities Resource List (2013) contains information on current managed grazing and pasture-related organizations, contacts and research initiatives.

Directors and educators with the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers (WSBDF) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison share advice and principles for starting and operating a successful farm business.