Arkansas’ catfish industry is rebounding after having “bottomed out” during the past few years, according to Carole Engle and Ted McNulty of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
“Leon’s ought to be staying in business,” McNulty grinned and nodded in referencing the long-popular Leon’s Catfish and Shrimp Restaurant here.
McNulty, a UAPB aquaculture/fisheries professor and head of the Arkansas Agriculture Department’s Aquaculture Division, said catfish prices had “soared” because of high feed prices and competition with “cheap Asian imports,” but the market is improving.
“The market is down to the hardcore people who won’t settle for anything else (but American-produced catfish),” said McNulty. “And some acreage that had been set aside for corn, rice or another crop is going back into catfish production this next year, but it’s going to be a slow recovery.
“A lot of research is being done here on new methods of raising fish, and it could be very beneficial economically,” he said.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
McNulty said some of the Asian products are sold as, but aren’t, catfish. Some American authorities have questioned the safety of the Asian products.
“With all its difficulties, we’ve redoubled our efforts to support the local industry,” said Engle, director of the UAPB Aquaculture/Fisheries Center. “We had a program in the last year or so to help 125 Arkansas catfish farmers develop economic plans.”
Engle said 2011 was “a good year” for Arkansas producers, who are excited that “the worst is behind us.” But while “profits are there right now,” a “credit constraint exists because banks don’t want to talk about loans for catfish farming,” she pointed out.
Engle added, “Many banks aren’t aware of how profitable the industry was in 2011, and anyone who survived in catfish farming from 2008-11 is a skilled manager.”
The producers who withstood the storm have shown the grit necessary to “bring the industry back to where it was, and maybe make it even larger,” Engle believes.
“The demand (for American catfish) is out there,” she said. “People will buy it. The producers have to — and I think will — win back some markets.”