Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems

The Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) is a sustainable agriculture research center housed at the University of Wisconsin's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. The center works to develop sustainable agriculture research programs that respond to farmer and citizen needs by involving them in setting the research agenda. The CIAS staff works together with a ten member Citizen Advisory Board and a nine-member group of faculty to carry out their research and programs.

FoodRoutes Network (FRN) is supporting the work of CIAS on the Wisconsin Foodshed Research Project. The Wisconsin Foodshed Research Project is a collaboration between citizens, faculty, and staff representing the UW Department of Rural Sociology, CIAS, and the Wisconsin Rural Development Center. The project aims to provide "tools and resources for activists and eaters who are changing the way we grow, process, market and eat food."

Specifically, FRN is collaborating with CIAS to further develop The Wisconsin Foodshed Research Project Web Site. This site provides information about foodsheds and sustainable food systems. The next step for the website will be to link farmers and consumers through an online marketing guide called the "Farm Fresh Atlas." The guide will provide a way for consumers to connect with Wisconsin farmers and food businesses that market locally, sustainably produced food within the Dane County region. CIAS will also produce a printed version of the "Farm Fresh Atlas." Farmers and businesses wishing to be listed in the Atlas will pay a small fee in order to sustain the publication of the directory. FRN and Ocean Group are working with CIAS to develop a GIS-enabled online Farm Fresh Atlas at the county level. Through FRN support, the Wisconsin Foodshed Research Project website currently features their 2002 online Farm Fresh Directory integrated with county level maps for Dane and surrounding counties. Both the printed and online versions of the directory will facilitate direct marketing opportunities for farmers while also providing an educational tool to help citizens understand what their "foodshed" might look like if they choose to purchase more locally produced foods.

The Wisconsin Foodshed Research Project web site will also feature thoroughly researched and documented information about the distribution pathways and production costs of foods popular with consumers. By clicking on a particular food item icon, site visitors will be linked to more detailed information about that food, and sustainable alternatives to the conventionally produced product. These research results will be featured on both www.foodshed.wisc.edu and www.foodroutes.org.

The collaboration between FRN and CIAS in the Wisconsin Foodshed Project will serve as a pilot project in both the promotion of local foodshed awareness and the replication and dissemination of CIAS's successes and challenges in carrying this out. As part of FRN's desire to build replicable, cost-effective models of foodshed initiatives, FRN will support CIAS in documenting the production of the marketing guide and the development of a site template that other organizations can use. CIAS will document and share the results of their work with other interested groups. Both CIAS and FRN share a long-term vision of creating a national network of local, online marketing guides that will allow consumers to buy more of their food from sustainable farmers, while gaining an understanding of where their food is coming from and how it is being produced.