Catifsh & Co.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published a fine article on the embattled catfish industry in its August 6 edition (subscription required but follow the link for the picture; and while you're at it, do a google image search for giant catfish). I don't have any comments, except that the best catfish I've ever had was at Taylor Grocery in Taylor, Mississippi. It is interesting that catfish are very much a regional product, farmed primarily in Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama.

Increased feed prices, driven by record-high soybean and corn prices, have stressed the budgets of all U.S livestock farmers--beef, poultry, swine and catfish. But the catfish industry has suffered the most for two reasons, said, Terry Hanson, an agricultural economist at Mississippi State University.

One, feed is a larger share of the variable cost of catfish production, 52 percent in 2007, compared with 35 percent for hogs and 21 percent for cattle, he said.

Second, the U.S. catfish industry must contend with more imports. In 2007, imported catfish accounted for 36 percent of industry sales, compared with just 9 percent for beef, 4 percent for pork and less than 0.00001 percent for poultry products, Hanson said.

"These other industries, while they can't pass on all the higher feed costs, they can pass on some because they have no import that's going to fill the void if people decide not to purchase the higher-priced meat product," Hanson said.

Wow, look at the market dominance of domestic poultry! Here's a good trivia question: Why is it that trout are aggressively advertised as being wild-caught, but catfish as being farm-raised?