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.

Food and the Mid-Level Farm is published by The MIT Press. Its authors are Thomas A. Lyson, GW Stevenson and Rick Welsch.