Shock waves from the Asian economic crisis will ripple through Wisconsin’s farm economy, with corn and soybean producers feeling the worst effects during 1998 and 1999, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison economist. Wisconsin’s dairy industry won’t be hit nearly as hard as grain and livestock producers, according to William Dobson, an agricultural economist at UW-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

Elton D. Aberle, head of the animal sciences department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was named Feb. 20, 1998, as dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences by Chancellor David Ward.

At one-day training conferences April 2 in Eau Claire and April 3 in Madison, the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives and Cooperative Development Services will highlight some of the country’s most innovative cooperative development strategies.

The Fourth Great Lakes Dairy Sheep Symposium will be held at the Badgerland Area Civic Center in Spooner, Wis., June 26-27, 1998.

Critics charge that the New Zealand Dairy Board distorts trade, hurts U.S. milk producers, and uses its monopoly exporting status to disadvantage its competitors. However, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor says that many of these complaints are based on questionable assertions regarding the board and its practices.