BRADENTON -- When Colin Carter takes his kids to the grocery store to buy a gallon of orange juice, he tells them at the check-out counter: "We're being taxed to benefit the growers in Florida."

Carter, who holds a doctorate in agricultural economics and is a professor at the University of California-Davis, contends that U.S. trade policies mean consumers pay more for orange juice because they must pay for protective tariffs.

"Every time you grab a gallon of orange juice, you're paying well above the world price because of protection for the industry," he said.

Under U.S. law, there is a "tremendous bias" in favor of the U.S. citrus industry over foreign producers, Carter says. In 90 percent of court cases, domestic producers win when the U.S. Department of Commerce decides whether "dumping" or selling of underpriced juice on the U.S. market has occurred.

In about half the cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission, which decides whether "dumping" has injured a U.S. industry, the commission rules in favor of the domestic industry, said Carter, who testified as an expert witness for Brazilian firms in the case involving Tropicana and Florida growers.

"The empirical evidence is clear. Any fluctuation in imports of (orange juice) from Brazil has affected the domestic price by an economically insignificant amount," according to Carter.

On the opposing side of the debate is Tom Spreen, who also has a doctorate in agricultural economics and is chair of the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida. Spreen briefly served as an unpaid consultant to a coalition of U.S. growers and processors who successfully petitioned for relief from Brazilian dumping.

"You have this great big crop in 2003-04, a billion gallons in a typical year, but in 2003-04, Florida produced about 1.3 billion gallons of orange juice. It was so big the U.S. did not need to import any orange juice that year," he said. "There was enough production from Florida to fulfill the demand."

 "There were imports, anyway, and in a simple way, that's why there was an anti-dumping suit filed against the Brazilian industry. There was more produce processed in the U.S. than we needed," Spreen said.

Spreen acknowledged the trade commission is a "somewhat political entity," but has shown its independence in other decisions, for example, one involving Mexican tomato dumping in the 1990s.

As for doing away with the whole tariff system, Spreen said he would feel better if tariffs were not in place but if they were eliminated, Florida's citrus industry would face lower production and prices and higher production in Brazil.

"It wouldn't kill it (the citrus industry) but it would cripple it," he said.

By SARA KENNEDY

skennedy@bradenton.com

Posted on Sunday, March 09, 2008

Source: www.bradenton.com