Research studies are being carried out on specialty crop marketing, specialty crop technology, including on-farm trials, and pilot projects to assess the economic potential in different parts of the state to produce, market, and/or process different types of specialty farm products.

The collaboration component of the project seeks to determine how farmers can organize to undertake different types of value-added processing and/or collaborative marketing arrangements.

The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed this research project in collaboration with the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University. The Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research is funding this project as part of its Special Research Initiative on Rural Community Development.

For more information on these project activities, please contact:

Burton E. Swanson
Project Director
Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
1301 West Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801

Tel: 217-244-6978
Fax: 217-333-5835
E-mail: swansonb@uiuc.edu