Catfish Harvest

The catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) is a repulsive-looking creature, a spiny, bewhiskered bottom scavenger that will eat nearly anything and thrives in some of the most polluted U.S. rivers. Northern fishermen usually throw catfish away in disgust, but tens of thousands of Americans, mostly in the South, consider its sweet white flesh a delicacy. This is especially so when it comes from catfish raised in the comparatively clean waters of a commercial pond.

Bamboo Beginnings. In response to this appetite, a growing number of farmers are flooding their acreage and raising fish instead of conventional crops. Last year the nation's 4,000 catfish farmers sold some 12 million lbs. of their product, and the 1972 harvest is projected at 52 million lbs. by the Interior Department's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries.

Switching to catfish makes sound financial sense. The fish require less care than crops and bring their growers a fatter price per pound (400 to 500 live weight) than beef, pork or poultry. One of the first to discover the market was Edgar Farmer, 57, who stocked a pond ten years ago with a dozen "channel cats" that he had caught with a bamboo pole in the Arkansas River. Last year Farmer reaped $55,000 from 500 acres of catfish ponds. They are far more profitable than the 1,300 acres he devotes to rice, soybeans and subsidized cotton. Like most catfish raisers, Farmer can sell all he produces. Last week he sold 60,000 fingerlings and 50 pairs of brood fish, including 25 pairs of hard-to-raise "blue cats," to United Fruit Co., which hopes to raise catfish in Central American ponds.

Rising Demand. The fish farmers get a good deal of aid from Washington, where pond-raised catfish are regarded as one answer to a rising U.S. demand for all types of fish products. The Agriculture Department's Soil Conservation Service, for example, offers free technical advice on the construction of ponds for catfish farming or flood-control purposes.

A variety of new products, services and jobs is growing up around the thriving catfish industry. Ralston Purina and other manufacturers have developed special catfish foods. Several firms are experimenting with pumps, mechanical feeders and harvesters, and there is a race to develop the best machine to behead, skin and eviscerate catfish. "Chip" Farmer and his neighbors in Dumas, Ark., have opened the nation's first catfish-processing plant, a cooperative that will package 900,000 Ibs. of fish this year. Restaurant chains specializing in farm-grown catfish are opening up in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. In time, the taste for Ictalurus punctatus may even move north.

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