(IntraFish) US catfish farmers are struggling to make ends meet as catfish feed prices rocket -- they hovered near $250 (€199) a ton for two decades before jumping to $600 (€477) a ton in the past two years, the New York Times reported last week.
"It's impossible to make even a napkin calculation showing that this is profitable," said Craig Tucker, former director of the Thad Cochran National Warmwater Aquaculture Center of Mississippi State University in an article on UPI.com.
A long-time trend in rising feed prices and the recent surge in prices has pushed many catfish farmers out of business during the past year -- helping drive up the price for fish, a benefit for those that remain in business.
A decade ago, Arkansas catfish farms produced 75 million catfish ready for markets, which put the total weight of market ready catfish at over 100 million pounds (45,359 metric tons). This year's numbers illustrate the exodus from catfish farming, as the state's ready-for-market catfish numbered about 15 million with a total weight of about 20 million pounds (9,072 metric tons).
Catfish farmers got a boost this year when the US Department of Agriculture said it would buy $10 million (€7.9 million) of catfish above and beyond its normal purchases. The purchase is part of a $170 million (€135,2 million) purchase of pork, chicken, lamb and fish meant to help farmers hit by the prolonged summer drought.
Experts say the purchase helps, but not enough to turn around a business in which 20 percent of U.S. producers shut down in 2010.
It costs about $0.75 (€0.59) for enough feed to produce a pound of catfish but farmers are getting about 0.$85 cents (€0.68) a pound -- not enough to cover the cost of running a fish farm.
"I think we are seeing a change before our very eyes, quicker than we ever dreamed. We have never had as high a feed cost and at the same time seen our pond-bank price go down," said Roger Barlow, executive vice president of the Catfish Farmers of America.