Agriculture
Sharon Vanorny
Will this woman flip the state Senate?
Democrats agree that their quest to flip the state Senate hinges on whether Kriss Marion, an organic farmer, can topple the Republican incumbent in Senate District 17, a seat once held by Republican maverick Dale Schultz. Read more
Snapped
A system that allows food stamp recipients to use their benefits at local farmers’ markets has been upended. Read more
Documenting the undocumented
"Los Lecheros,” a short documentary making the round of film festivals, explores the intertwined fates of Wisconsin’s farmers and undocumented dairy workers. Read more
Ben Jones
Sacred ground
A farmer north of Madison has preserved her land for farming — and made some of it available to Hmong farmers. Read more
Seeds of a movement
Sustainable farmers and seed savers are highlighted in the Food and Farms Film Festival. Read more
Eric Lewandowski
Hometown hero
L’Etoile founder and celebrity chef Odessa Piper talks about the future of farm-to-table and why she keeps coming back to Madison. Read more
Linda Falkenstein
Beautiful bovines
Photographing dairy cows is no do-it-yourself, amateur art. Cybil Fisher has made a career of it. She has a few tools at her disposal, including a team of cow wranglers, spray paint, an orange monkey on a stick and a bucket of feed. Read more
WHS 38801
Ag campus, u rah rah!
Tours from the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation will highlight an overlooked Mad City gem, the ag campus. It’s the home of distinctive architecture as well as the site of important discoveries from butterfat to vitamins. Read more
Linda Falkenstein
“The food system is broken”
Keynote speakers at the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference focus on nutrition and food justice. While farm-to-school programs now exist in all 50 states, there’s much yet to learn about spreading programs. Read more
Lauren Justice
A time to plant
Equinox Community Farm uses a “water wheel transplanter” to make planting season go a little smoother. But as Steven Potter learns, it’s still hard work. Read more
Real Life CSAs
How has the community model worked out for small farms? Even with the economic boost of money paid upfront, farmers face many challenges and need to keep innovating. Read more
A better way
Humane options for slaughter of local meat and poultry grow. In the wake of the closing of Black Earth Meats, there are other processing plants who want to do the right thing. Read more
DNR to factory farms: How can we help?
Large factory farms have been criticized as being heavy polluters and cruel to animals. Wisconsin’s DNR is trying to attract more of them. Read more
The open-source seed movement in Wisconsin
Farmers have traditionally gathered and saved seeds from one growing season to plant in the next. But this age-old tradition is being threatened by corporations that are increasingly restricting access to seeds through patents. Read more
William C. Lubing
The mystery of dying bees: Madison beekeepers, UW researchers look for answers
Bees pollinate much of the food we eat, but they're dying in huge numbers. This year was worse than most, a new low in a trend that's only getting worse. What will this mean for us and our food supply? Read more
The Farley Center helps farmers of color market produce and even go organic
The Farley Center for Peace, Justice and Sustainability outside Verona has been helping farmers of color, especially those with Hmong and Latino backgrounds, with the process of starting CSAs and gaining organic certification. Read more
Ellen J. Meany
Turning leaves into cash: Tobacco farming in Dane County, Wisconsin
Parts of Wisconsin are extremely conducive to growing tobacco, including the south-central part of the state. But it can be tough on the land, sucking micronutrients out of the soil, and it is tillage-intensive as well. Read more
Ellen J. Meany
Tobacco in Wisconsin: A timeline
Here's an outline of important events in Wisconsin's long tobacco history, covering business, agriculture and regulation. Read more
Ellen J. Meany
Tobacco epitomizes the 'botany of desire'
Tobacco is native to the Americas, like its sister plant the potato, and most likely originated in Peru. It was considered a medicine in ancient times, and really still is, at root, a nicotine delivery device. Read more
Ellen J. Meany
Tobacco farmers show off the tools of the trade: Photos and video
More photos of the local air-cured tobacco landscape, plus a documentary film from 1959 depicting a flue-cured tobacco harvest in Ontario, Canada. Read more
