In March of 2000, a proposal was submitted to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture by The University of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service Agricultural Development Center for consideration as a grant from the Agricultural Development Fund. The nature of the proposal centered around conducting interviews with value-added entrepreneurs in Tennessee, and developing case-study reports to summarize the interviews. The Tennessee project was coordinated with similar projects in Kentucky and Arkansas. The written case studies in Tennessee were proposed for use as primary teaching tools by The University of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service, especially through the Agricultural Development Center. The case studies were also described for use as training tools with county Extension agents and for distribution across the state. The distribution and use of the finished case-study reports were proposed to encompass the entire state and be posted to the Web site of the Agricultural Development Center.

The proposal noted that case-study reports are often confidential and do not disclose the business or entrepreneur names. While the notion of case study reports providing sometimes sensitive business information with confidentiality to the case business is a valid one, the proposal for this project called for the case studies to not obtain and report any proprietary, confidential and sensitive information. Rather, the case-study reports were to accent the realness of the businesses so readers will be able to identify and relate to the case study by name, product and, in some cases, photograph. The proposal described how the project would directly enhance the educational efforts of the Agricultural Development Center by developing specific and unique educational materials for us in one-on-one and group trainings of county Extension agents and existing/potential agri-entrepreneurs.