Jackson Clarion-Ledger
MS lawmaker wants help after catfish industry hits 'crisis' point
By Bea Anhuci
- Catfish farmers in states like Alabama and Mississippi are facing economic hardship due to rising production costs.
- Increased expenses for feed, electricity, and transportation have outpaced the prices farmers receive for their fish.
- Senators from catfish-producing states have requested the USDA purchase surplus catfish to provide financial relief.
- Despite potential government aid, some multi-generational farms may be forced to close.
Grant Martin will likely be the last of his family to run a catfish farm in Alabama.
The Martin family has owned and operated Brookwood Catfish near the coast for almost 50 years. Instead of lullabies and fairytales at night, Martin told the Clarion Ledger, his grandfather had sent him to bed as a child with stories of the whiskered fish.
"The only thing I was ever certain of as a kid, that my grandaddy and my daddy made sure I knew, was that the farm was coming to me one day, and I had to be ready for it," Martin said. "I can't make that same promise to my son."
Farming is a tumultuous business. Brookwood has had ups and downs, Martin said, including years deep in the red. The difference, he said, is that there was always an upswing at some point.
It's a situation not unique to Brookwood or Alabama. Mississippi is the top-producing state for catfish in the country, and many of its farms are at risk. One lawmaker from Mississippi is hoping to do something about it, hoping for a multimillion dollar bailout from the federal government.
"Sometimes we spent a few years not making much money, not making any money," he said. "But we could always come back from it. We just can't do that anymore."
The crux of the issue, Martin said, is that too many dollars are going into production and not enough dollars are coming back in after harvest. The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic threw the catfish industry into a tailspin that only got worse over the years, he said, and costs have skyrocketed.
"Some years ago, I bought 50-pound bags of [soybean] meal for $10 each, less if I got a few dozen at a time," Martin said. "I'm lucky to bring that bag home for less than $30 today."
The soybean meal that makes up about a third of his fish's diet is far from the only element that has increased in cost.
"Everything is more expensive now for the farm," Martin said. "It's the food, the electricity, the gas, the maintenance, the transportation. Everything has gone up except the money coming in to help us run the place."
Martin said he meets with a few friends in the industry every Saturday night at a bar in Prichard, Alabama. What started 15 years ago as a weekly get-together between seven catfish farmers, he said, has become a meeting of three catfish farmers and four men who have had to close their farms.
Part of what's sustained catfish farms through market swings and inflation, said agricultural economist Jerry Parker-Smith, is financial support from the federal government. Traditional farms growing crops such as soybean and corn can receive tens of thousands of dollars every year in subsidies, he said, but catfish farmers like Martin usually benefit more from surplus purchases.
"When there's a lot of something left over, or a surplus, the [United States Department of Agriculture] will sometimes step in and buy up the extra," Parker-Smith explained. "It's a win-win. The farmers get the cash they need to keep running their farms, and that extra produce or meat or fish goes to food banks instead of being wasted."
Parker-Smith, who worked as a federal policy consultant with the USDA, said all of Mississippi's operations are probably feeling the effects of inflation on their production. He estimated that dozens of the Magnolia State's farms, especially smaller, family-owned ones, could close in the next decade or so because the smaller businesses usually don't benefit from subsidies.
When contacted, three Mississippi's catfish farmers did not respond by press time to discuss their situation.
U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a former Mississippi Agriculture Commissioner who has largely focused on farming in her congressional tenure, requested one of these purchases for catfish at the end of June. Alongside fellow senators from Alabama and Arkansas, Hyde-Smith asked Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to OK the deal initially proposed by industry leaders.
"The industry has been caught in a severe inflationary squeeze, particularly from 2023 to the present, fundamentally altering its production economics," Hyde-Smith wrote. "This pressure has consistently driven the cost of producing U.S. farm-raised catfish above the prices farmers receive for their fish, leading to three continuous years of negative financial returns."
The senator highlighted climbing feed prices and electricity costs as pressures that have pushed the industry "into a crisis of economic sustainability." A cash infusion from the federal government would "provide immediate relief" to this year's harvest while "supporting rural communities and providing nutritious, American-grown product to families, children, and those in need."
The USDA's last purchase of surplus catfish came in August 2025, almost a year ago, with a $20 million price tag. That purchase, like the proposed new one would, mainly benefited farmers in Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, which dominate the domestic catfish market. Rollins had not approved the purchase as of mid-July.
If approved, the federal dollars will likely help many farms in the Gulf Coast region. For Martin's farm, he said, it's probably too late.
"I think this might be about it for us here," Martin said. "I've done what I can to keep bringing good fish to the people around me and grow this farm into something we can keep handing down, but the money just isn't there. There's nothing better than being a catfish farmer, but hopefully there's something that comes close."