Publisher's Commentary
Catfish are becoming king in the Delta    Once thought of as merely a "'bottom feeder"  and not much else, the country is finally waking up to Mississippi Delta raised catfish. On a recent visit to New York, Cindy and I were pleasantly surprised and pleased to see that catfish was listed on the menu in a well known restaurant  there. Delta cotton fields that stretch to the horizon are now often joined by acres and acres of catfish ponds - a relatively new use (30 years) of Delta land.  And, the Delta's economy is benefiting from this.
  Just after the Civil War, settlers stumbled into the vast wilderness of the Mississippi Delta including my family from Virginia. Long before the railroads, long before any roads, access was from the banks of the Mississippi River and through it's tributaries such as the Yazoo, Sunflower, and Tallahatchie rivers.  By many accounts, early settlers chopped their way through thick cane, tall grass, and vines. The Delta  jungle equaled any in Africa.  Malaria, yellow fever, and diseases were rampant.  Nevertheless, those brave souls didn't succumb to the Delta's wilds and when they cleared the land,  the magic of the Delta came alive with the first plantings of cotton.
  Catfish farming arrived in the Delta 100 years after those early settlers. It is an entrepreneurial spirit introduced in the late sixties. Those early catfish producers farmed by trial and error learning their lessons the hard way without prior knowledge of feeding methods, processing, or marketing.
  In the eighties, research programs began to take shape providing much needed information to producers. Today, the Mississippi Delta grows over 70 percent of the nation's catfish in some 100,000 acres of water. This industry now employs 28,000 people in Mississippi. Catfish farming has also created related industries in the Delta such as our feed meals, our Delta processing industry, and manufacturers of equipment used in this industry.
  At some point, producers realized  that if this industry was ever going to grow, a full scale marketing effort had to be launched. Catfish farmers were quick to find the value of Madison Avenue advertising agencies that helped market Mississippi Delta catfish to the U.S. and to the world. The early spirits of those first catfish producers, combined with research at Stoneville and high-powered marketing techniques, have enabled the Mississippi Delta to reap great rewards from catfish farming. The production value of catfish is estimated to be over $300 million. It is now the fourth largest commodity in Mississippi behind only poultry, timber, and cotton. Estimated total economic impact of catfish in Mississippi is over $2 billion annually - due to all of the many related businesses that it takes to keep catfish production going from dirt moving, to feed meals, to harvesting equipment, to processing plants, to transportation. In economic terms, the multiplier is seven meaning that for ever dollar earned by the catfish farmer there are seven more dollars generated in the local economy. This number is much higher than other crops. Truly, catfish is held in high regard. Salmon is still number one in the U.S., however catfish is gaining ground. Let's hope the demand continues to increase by leaps and bounds which will in turn help the Delta.
  In this issue of the DBJ, we feature our first ever spotlight on this industry.  Working on this special section has been an eye opener for us and we hope that you will find this as interesting as we have.
  We are also resuming our tour of the Delta, spotlighting different towns. This tour was very popular with our readers last year.  This month's stop: Greenwood. Next month we'll revisit Greenville.
  In closing, I would like to announce that the Second Annual Profiles In Leadership Awards will be held on May 30th at The Cleveland Country Club. Our keynote speaker for this year's program will be U.S. Senator Trent Lott.  At last  year's event we paid tribute to House of Representative member, Charlie Capps; Planters Bank chief executive, Henry Paris; Delta & Pine Land chairman, Roger Malkin; and then Delta State University president, Dr. Kent Wyatt. U.S. Senator Thad Cochran was our keynote speaker. This year's event will prove to be as great and in the next issue we will announce this year's honorees.  At this time we extend an invitation to any corporation who would like to join us in co-sponsoring this year's event. Contact me here at the DBJ immediately as there is a limit to the number of co-sponsorships available. Back