Rising costs threaten Southern tradition
Story and photos by JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writer
Could Southern fried catfish become as pricey a delicacy as New England lobster and as rare as caviar?
The U.S. farm-raised catfish industry is battling rising feed costs and imported fish, while wholesalers and restaurants are dealing with catfish shortages and higher prices.
Robert Murtha, owner of Murtha’s Fish in Lonoke, said he’s seen the writing on the wall and the passing of an era for farm-raised catfish.
“There won’t be catfish in Arkansas, let alone Lonoke County,” Murtha said.
Murtha dresses and sells fresh catfish in his one-man operation on Hwy. 31 North in Lonoke. His hands ache with carpal-tunnel syndrome as he cleans an estimated 300 pounds of fish a week while only open Thursday through Saturday.
Murtha can’t say how long he will stay in business. If farm-raised catfish prices keep rising, he said he’d probably have to close the doors. He has seen his customer base drop, but still counts on his regular customers from Jacksonville and Little Rock. Last week, Murtha sent catfish to Dallas, Washington and Wisconsin.
Murtha will sell only farm-raised catfishgrown in ponds. He said you have more control with the taste of the farm-raised catfish than a river catfish. River catfish have a different taste, with pond-raised fish you know what the fish have been eating–grain.
Murtha has a wildlife biology degree from South Dakota State University. He has been in the fishing business since 1974. He owned a 160-acre catfish farm in Lonoke for 10 years until getting out of the business in 1992. He’s filleted and sold fish full time beginning in 1988. Murtha said one year he had cleaned 70,000 pounds of catfish with five employees while he had the farm.
“Back in 1985, 15 to 20 million fish were sent to Mississippi and Alabama and that market is gone. I have sent catfish to North Carolina, but that market isn’t there anymore,” Murtha said.
“People are telling me many catfish farmers in lower Arkansas and Mississippi are filling up their pond and planting row crops. July corn was going for $8 a bushel; five years ago, it was $3. Part of it is ethanol. Arkat Feed Mill in Dumas is producing dog food instead of fish feed because it is too expensive to manufacture,” he said.
Murtha said catfish feed prices are $500 a ton. It takes 60 cents of feed to make a pound of catfish. In 1992 it was 20 cents.
University of Arkansas Exten-sion Service fishery specialist Anita Kelly said in 2008 the price of soybeans and corn rose and the cost of feed doubled from $200 a ton to $400. Catfish processors’ prices did not go up. Many farmers were losing money and got out of the business.
She said over the past five years, catfish-pond acreage in the state has dropped by a third. In Mississippi, the decline was at least by half. According to the National Agriculture Statistics Service, catfish-farming pond acreage in Arkansas has declined 6,000 acres to a total of 13,200.
Arkansas is still the second largest catfish producer in the nation, behind Mississippi. Catfish was the sixth largest commodity in the state, Kelly said.
State aquaculture coordinator Ted McNulty said there are around 75 fish farms producing catfish in the state. He estimated the catfish industry has a $300 million economic impact on the state.
Kelly said there are no strictly farm-raised catfish operations in Lonoke County. She said there are only three fish farms left in the county–Hopper Stephens Hatcheries, Farm Cat and Raper Fish Farm.
“Once you get out of the fish business it is going to take two or three years t0 get back in,” Murtha said.
Kelly said catfish prices are up going for $1.20 a pound wholesale. Now catfish is in short supply. Processors are calling the extension service looking for fish farmers who may have fish ready to harvest. She said the remaining catfish farmers in the state are holding out to see if corn-based ethanol fuel subsidies go way. If they do, the price of feed should go down.
Janet Smith, office manager at Hopper Stephens Hatcheries, said feed costs for the company have risen 30 percent. The hatchery is selling as many catfish as they can so the company doesn’t have to spend money in order to keep feeding the catfish over the summer and fall. Smith said they are asking customers if they can use a shorter or longer length catfish for their fish orders to thin out the number of catfish on hand to feed. If customers are unable to take the sizes available, crews are re-measuring the catfish at the hatchery to get the requested size.
Fewer U.S. farm-raised catfish producers are causing trouble for local restaurants. Heeya Adams, co-owner of Uncle Dean’s Catfish and Such restaurant in Cabot worries about catfish shortages and high prices. Uncle Dean’s has been in business 13 years and boasts that it serves U.S. catfish on its storefront window.
“This is traditional southern Arkansas food. It is like if Idaho ran out of potatoes and we had buy potatoes from China,” she said.
Adams is concerned wholesalers will limit selling catfish to larger restaurants and bypass smaller business. She said wholesalers are not accepting new accounts and stopped selling to gas stations and delis. Catfish has been removed from all-you-can-eat buffets while some have chosen to use imported catfish.
Last year Adams noticed a tightening of the U.S. farm-raised catfish supply. She said they were getting 18 to 20 cases of catfish a week. But now the restaurant has to rely on what the wholesaler brings in. Adams said the shortage has been going on for at least eight months. In April the restaurant was not able to select the size of the fish.
“In January, wholesale catfish prices went up $10 in one week. You can’t make a profit. Catfish is more expensive than a T-bone steak,” Adams said.
Premium quality catfish prices have lowered to $6 to $7 a pound, but are still more expensive than last year when catfish was $4 a pound, according to Adams.
She said they want to keep their customers and cannot increase menu prices $1 to $2 overnight, because loyal customer would notice and go elsewhere.
Adams said the restaurant may have to look for an option such as selling American cod or pollock if the catfish situation worsens.
Imported fish is another hit to the farm-raised catfish industry.
Kelly said there is influx of foreign fish entering the market like pangasius from Vietnam and tilapia, also known as cherry snapper, is being imported from Africa, South America and Mexico, where labor is cheaper.
“The importers don’t have the FDA standards as grain-fed catfish,” Murtha said.
He said pangasius is a fish in the catfish family but has a completely different shape.
“Somehow tilapia is not going to satisfy my craving for catfish. It is a fishy fish,” Murtha said.
Kelly said country-of-origin labels are required for catfish sold in stores, but not in restaurants.
Uncle Dean’s restaurant won’t use imported catfish because their customers know the taste of U.S. farm-raised catfish.
“Fish imported to America from China is saltier and there is a lot of water in the fish,” Adams said.
She said Chinese-grown catfish started coming into the country in 2005. The fish salesmen were pushing the cheaper fish, as it was half the price of U.S. catfish.
A third element to affect the catfish industry is the heat. Last summer the temperatures were in the upper 90s for several weeks.
“No one wanted to go outside and cook fish,” Murtha said.
