In U.S., Cotton Cries Betrayal

The result was a study filled with mathematical equations and symbols, using Agriculture Department data, the most damning portion of which was an estimate showing how big a role subsidies had played on world markets in 1999-2002. During that period, cotton prices slumped to about 30 cents a pound, and Sumner calculated how the nation's 25,000 cotton farmers would have behaved if the $3 billion to $4 billion a year in domestic and export subsidies had been removed.

He concluded that the United States, the biggest exporter of cotton, would have shipped about 41 percent less cotton abroad; that would have raised the world price about 12.6 percent.

U.S. trade officials defending Washington's case at the WTO attacked Sumner's analysis as faulty, but a much more vituperative reaction came from farm organizations whose California representatives went to Sumner's university last summer to confront him and university administrators.

"If this was governmental or military related, it might be called treason and court martial proceedings would be in order," Earl P. Williams, president of the California Cotton Growers Association, was quoted as saying in the Western Farm Press. "Furthermore, I would hope that anyone that supports the UC system financially would step back and question continued support until this issue is resolved."

Inflaming the farm groups' anger, some of their officers said, was a sense of betrayal that an economist of Sumner's reputation and previous official position would defect to the opposing side. They understand that a professor has a right to academic freedom, said Charlie Hoppin, chairman of the California Rice Industry Association, but "other than buying his fine mind, [the Brazilians] bought very impeccable credentials."

Now that the WTO has ruled against the U.S. position, "we're just as mad as we were earlier, if not madder," Cameron said of the cotton growers group.

The message has been received loud and clear by Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC-Davis, who said the amount of money farm organizations provide for research at the university is "significant."

Van Alfen said Sumner "has the right, and it's an important right" to use his academic expertise as he did by working for the Brazilians, and be paid for it, especially since he was careful to spend only vacation time doing so. But, the dean said, "I question his judgment. It's a matter of, in any organization, if you have close working relationships with a broad group of people, you want to think twice about developing relations with their competitor, and doing it in such a public way."

Sumner, however, is unrepentant. "I'm trying to do the best economics and put it into the system," he said.

Likening the growers' threats to witness tampering, he said with a chuckle: "What is this, the mafia or something? Think of it as a criminal case, and one side says, 'We'll put pressure on this guy not to participate.' That's not right, is it?"