The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association presented a check for $5,000 to the Norman F. Olson Cheese Research Scholarship fund July 23, bringing the fund to “critical mass” for annual support of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student.

The dairy price support system will end after 1999, and the dairy industry currently has no replacement to deal with downside price risks after supports are gone. Exports could be one important replacement, says Bill Dobson, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.

Young people interested in dairy farming have until Aug. 3 to apply for an innovative program, now in its fourth year, to help them establish their own grass-based dairy farms in Wisconsin.

Milking parlor clean-in-place systems are about to get some needed design and control guidelines, thanks to studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Milking Research and Instruction Lab.

The Upper Midwest, and other primarily manufacturing-milk regions, would gain under milk marketing order deregulation and the proposed Option 1b differentials, says a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor.

A series of informational events will get underway April 25 at the Farmers’ Market on the Capitol Square as part of the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences’ celebration of the state’s 150th anniversary.

The second College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Issues Forum, April 7 at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison, will look at the future of animal agriculture, nationally and in Wisconsin.

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.

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.