By Julie Speed
  Simmons Farm Raised Catfish, producers of fresh and frozen catfish and one of the area's largest employers, is gearing up for another expansion.
  The company's five-year plan consists of an increase from 17 million live pounds of catfish to 25 million live pounds and would boost employment at the processing plant from around 200 to almost 300 employees, said Harry Simmons, president of Simmons Farm Raised Catfish in Yazoo City. "Hopefully, if our business continues to increase to what we've set our goals for, once we complete this and have our expansion on line, we'll be able to move on into another phase," he said. "All of that depends on our level of sales and profitability."
  The expansion will consist of increasing the facility's freezing capacity, providing more delivery capability and adding ice production and storage space, he said.
  "The expansion we've done now has just given us more space for hand filleters and trimmers off of our filleting machine and a little dry storage area," Simmon said. "When we complete what we're doing now, we intend to add about 30 people. When we hit that 25 million pound goal, I anticipate the total employment will be between 270 and 290."
  Seventeen million live pounds - about 70,000 to 80,000 pounds per day - were processed during the company's
fiscal year, which ended Oct. 31, Simmons said.
  "When we got into the business, there were about 12,000 acres of catfish ponds in the Delta," said Simmons. "Today, there's about 140,000 acres. In the late 1970s, interest in catfish farming started picking up. We went from 12,000 to 30,000 acres. We had several poor crop years in 1980 to 1981 but we also had a tremendous increase from 30,000 to about
80,000 at the same time. From then, we had probably 10% to 15% increases a year until about 1988 or 1989. Then it leveled off in the Delta. East Mississippi has had fairly good growth in the last three or four years, as has Alabama and Louisiana."
  Simmons has been growing catfish since 1976; the processing plant, which now has about 210 employees, opened in 1982, Simmons said.
  Jerry Frazier of the Yazoo City Chamber of Commerce said the community always benefits when local companies expand.
  "Every expansion spurs economic development and we're glad to see Simmons Catfish doing so well," Frazier said.