BY Julie Speed
Contributing Writer, Delta Business Journal

  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, farm-raised catfish is the No. 1 farmed finfish in America Ð and most of it is raised in the catfish ponds of the Mississippi Delta, where the region's flat land, plentiful ground water supply and ideal climate for raising catfish, allow this industry to thrive.
  The catfish business would not have excelled if pioneers had not invested heavily in "sweat equity" during the early years, said Keith C. King. King, a certified public accountant in Cleveland, is also CEO & Director of Six Mile Fisheries Inc. Additionally he has served as board member for Producers Feed Co., Catfish Farmers of Mississippi, Catfish Bargaining Association, Catfish Farmers of America, Country Select Catfish, Inc. and Confish, Inc.
  "There many pioneers, most notably however are the late Tom Reed and Paul Battles," according to King. King goes on to note that, "Harrell Potter of Belzoni, who has approximately 2,000 catfish acres and owns a chain of Sunflower Food Stores throughout Mississippi, started out as a meat cutter at Piggly Wiggly in Belzoni many years ago and has done quite well by working hard and smart."
  Hard work and planning have paid off handsomely at the same time a shift in the seafood industry, from saltwater fish to farm-raised catfish, is occurring. Fish farming could provide nearly 40% of all fish within the next 15 years, according to a report published by the Consultative Group On International Research.
  In less than 30 years, more than 40% of the fish species in U.S. waters will have been overfished or seriously depleted, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The shift positions Aquaculture, the science of raising water-based plants and animals, in a controlled environment, as the fastest growing segment of U.S. agriculture.
  About 94% of all U.S. catfish production comes from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. In 1999, Mississippi produced more than 65% of all farm-raised catfish. More than 30,000 acres of catfish are grown in Belzoni, dubbed "The Catfish Capitol of the World," said Mike McCall, publisher of The Catfish Journal, because "that's more than the entire Alabama and Arkansas industries," he said.
  In Belzoni, the town's population swelled from 2,500 to nearly 20,000 when catfish folks celebrated the 25th anniversary of the World Catfish Festival on April 1. Located in the newly renovated IB&B Depot, the Catfish Capitol Museum features handcrafted exhibits by state artisans and members of the Mississippi Craftsmens' Guild to reflect Belzoni's catfish history.
Based in Belzoni, The Catfish Institute (TCI) was formed in 1986 to market the industry for catfish farmers. TCI has raised more than $29 million through member feed mill dues to fund advertising and public relations campaigns.
  "The Catfish Institute was founded by some very forward-thinking catfish farmers," said Henry Gantz, president of the Institute. "Since that time, catfish processing has gone from a little over 200 million pounds a year to more than 600 million pounds a year. We have been very fortunate to have historically high pond bank prices and historically low feed prices."
From 1986 to 1997, catfish sales steadily increased from $223 million to almost $600 million, according to the USDA.
"The U.S. farm-raised catfish industry is proud of the phenomenal growth it has experienced in the past decade," Gantz said. "Catfish consumption has more than doubled and marketing efforts have helped drive sales to nearly $592 million in 1997. But more importantly, industry members are proud of their ability to supply consumers with a quality product at a stable price."
Because the demand for farm-raised catfish continues to grow, market opportunities are ripe. From farming to processing, the catfish industry definitely plays a key role in the economic development and agriculture diversity of the Delta, said Gene Luster, executive director of Belzoni-Humphreys Development Foundation.
  Simmons Farm Raised Catfish, producers of fresh and frozen catfish and one of Yazoo City's five largest employers, recently announced an increase in production from 17 million to 25 million live pounds of catfish and a boost in employment at the processing plant from around 200 to almost 300 employees.
  "When we got into the business, there were about 12,000 acres of catfish ponds in the Delta," said Harry Simmons, president. "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 a couple of 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 per 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 opened in 1982. Seventeen million live pounds represents about 70,000 to 80,000 pounds processed per day, Simmons said.
  In Indianola, Delta Western Feed Mill, with 85 employees, produces catfish feed, and SouthFresh Farms, processors of fresh and frozen catfish since 1975, has grown from 80 to 250 employees. Delta Pride Catfish, Inc. is the largest processor of fresh water fish in the world and employs almost 1,000 workers. Stockholder-owners of the farmer-owned cooperative with 150 members control approximately 70,000 acres of catfish ponds, about half of the national production of farm-raised catfish.
Since 1977, when Confish, then known as Country Skillet, moved its headquarters to the Mississippi Delta and built a new processing plant in Isola, six major expansions have been completed and the plant now has the highest live fish/slaughter capacity in the industry. A recent $6 million expansion created 200 jobs, for a current total of approximately 700 employees, and the capacity to process 35 million pounds of live weight.
  "Our catfish are raised in ponds filled with freshwater pumped from underground wells," said Confish president Dick Stevens. "They are nurtured on a diet of high-protein food pellets that give them a light, delicate taste and tender texture. During processing, the entire procedure is completed is less than 30 minutes."
  America's Catch, a vertically integrated catfish processor in Itta Bena, has a similar operation.
  Earlier this year, Confish, Inc. began marketing under Country Select. The company was established in 1967 by ConAgra.
"The catfish business is a solid business with a good business perspective," Stevens said. "If you get into it the same way you'd get into other business with adequate capital, don't expect it to be a windfall business, but expect it to be a business that grinds out profits if worked day after day. If catfish growers go into the business with big expectations or free spending, they likely won't survive."
  All 2,080 catfish acres of Sunflower-based AquaPro Corp., the nation's only publicly traded, growth-oriented catfish aquaculture company, are located in the Mississippi Delta. With nine farms, AquaPro is negotiating for a tenth catfish farm and a processing plant that would boost productivity, said George Hastings, founder and CEO.
  "The reason we got into the business to begin with is that the World Health Organization and other organizations were telling us that ocean fish were giving out and that aquaculture must make up the difference for the world to get protein," Hastings said. "About 375 farming families control about 70% of U.S. production - all out of the Delta."
  The Thad Cochran National Warmwater Aquaculture Center (NWAC) in Stoneville, a research center for the catfish industry, has 68 ongoing research projects, ranging from alternative species to herbicide impact.
  "Personnel with the USDA Catfish Genetics Research Unit at NWAC are working with processing problems, in particular those associated with processing yield," said Edwin H. Robinson, aquaculture program leader and coordinator.
The catfish industry is a number cruncher's dream; because it's all numbers, King said.
  "How much feed is needed? How many fish do you stock? How many fish did you harvest? How many fish are floating? And the all-mysterious springtime question, 'how many fish did you lose to the black hole?', also known as winterkill," he said. "Even though many factors occur before, during, and after the number crunching, but if you don't have good numbers, you won't be farming long.  And even with good record keeping, things don't always work out the way you want."
  In 1983, Dr. Wallace Killcreas, an ag economist and computer programmer at Mississippi State University, with the help of several catfish farmers, wrote a catfish inventory management program call FISHY, King said.
  "The program has evolved into a really good way for catfish producers to maintain complete inventory management records for their fish farms," he said. "FISHY is on the verge of another complete rewrite from a DOS based programming language to Windows based Visual FoxPro.  The new FISHY program has new visual programming languages that allow for some very creative and sophisticated routines and reports, which will allow the users - both farmers and researchers - to manage the production information of their operations even more effectively.  Hopefully, the advanced reporting capabilities of the program will lead to a better understanding of what is happening in our ponds under various scenarios and perhaps even give us an edge in our production capabilities."
  Challenges and opportunities abound in catfish disease research and the application of science to create a better fish, King said.
  "Fish mortality cost the catfish industry millions of dollars each year," he said. "The introduction of new materials to vaccinate fish at hatching to protect them from diseases holds great promise for our industry."
  Coupled with the introduction of catfish with better physiological traits, the catfish industry should make great strides over the next five years in catfish production, King said.
  "The research being conducted here in our own backyard at the Thad Cochran Warmwater Aquaculture Center is invaluable to us as producers," he said. "We are all thankful to have such a great research facility in Stoneville filled with scientist who are dedicated to providing the industry with solutions to our many problems."