Raymond E. Borton '53, retired in 1996 as senior economist with the California State Office of Economic Research. Previously, Borton had served as an agricultural economist in the California State Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).

After graduating from Cornell, Borton was an editor for the College of Agriculture, Experiment Station, and Extension Service at the University of Connecticut. Next he served with International Voluntary Services in South Vietnam. After earning graduate degrees, Borton joined the Agricultural Development Council, first as a staff member in New York and later as a council associate and visiting professor at the University of the Philippines. In the late 1960s, he worked in Ethiopia’s Ministry of Planning as an agricultural economist employed by Stanford Research Institute.

When Borton became state economist for CDFA, there was no systematic accounting of the vast array of agricultural specialty crops grown in California. He recognized the need to document the importance of California’s specialty crops and their contribution to California’s economy. In his first two years at CDFA, he persuaded the California office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service to create a set of data schematics and computer programs that would codify the existing sporadic reports generated by several of the larger offices of the County Agricultural Commissioners. Borton then wrote a detailed instruction manual for the local county commissioner staff and developed training classes to ensure uniform reporting practices and techniques.

Borton led a campaign within the agricultural community, jointly with the California Farm Bureau, to persuade all the county commissioners to prepare similar annual reports. In 1978, the first summary was published. This first comprehensive report on California’s specialty agriculture verified that California farmers produced over a third of the fruits and vegetables grown in the United States and was hailed by the California agricultural industry. This reporting process and compilation system is still used to generate annual reports, and the information is regularly published by the USDA.

Next Borton turned to agricultural export statistics. In 1982, he began a similar process to examine the California exports of agricultural crops and products. Between 1984 and 1989, he perfected the system used today and demonstrated that more than one-fifth of California’s agricultural production is exported. As a result, in 1988 the CDFA and the California Farm Bureau together with the California State World Trade Commission and the Agricultural Extension program of the University of California, Berkeley, organized 20 Agricultural Exports Seminars over ten years. The Agricultural Export Reports are now prepared by the U.C.-Davis Agricultural Issues Center.

In the process of preparing these two sets of annual reports, Borton gained detailed knowledge of California’s agriculture industry. Thus, he represented California’s agriculture sector at the Department of Finance’s California Economic Outlook Conferences for 14 years. He also met regularly with agricultural visitors from throughout the world’s agricultural production system.

In the mid-1980s, Borton played a significant role in organizing the economists in the Sacramento region, and held monthly discussions on a broad range of topics. He took the lead in having this group accredited by the National Association for Business Economics. Borton served in several positions for this group, which came to be known as the Sacramento Economics Roundtable (SER), and received its Founder’s Award in 1990.

Borton is well-known for his dedication to the arts and for his contributions to the international community through his volunteer leadership at the International House in Davis, which serves international students, scholars, and other visitors to the community and promotes international understanding and world peace. Borton was recognized by receiving the I-House Volunteer of the Year award in 2005. He has volunteered as an usher for the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and as docent for the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, and he is past president of the National Alumni Association of International Voluntary Services. Borton and his wife, Verena, were honored with the City of Davis Citizen(s) of the Year award in 2005.

Borton also served as the Northern California director on the CALS Alumni Association board of directors from 1996 to 2002. He continues to be an active leadership team member. His tireless dedication to promoting Cornell includes student recruitment at local high schools and promoting the CALS book award. He has also organized many other educational and networking events with lectures and educational programs that highlight CALS and possible liaisons to California and CALS alumni.

Raymond and Verena Borton live in Davis, Cal. They have three children: Christopher (deceased), Benjamin, and Stephanie.