Acres & Acres of Catfish

Not all heartland farmers are working with soil and crops.  Aquaculture is a big player in the world of food production. And in American aquaculture – catfish is king. The whiskered critters account for nearly half of all fish farming in the United States.

Chat Phillips oversees a huge catfish farming operation in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He says, “I think one of the most interesting parts of our industry is that we took a local domestic fish…I mean this is a fish that’s native to our area.  It’s found in all of our streams and all of our lakes.  And while we didn’t domesticate it, we cultivated a local species, and that fish was already ingrained in our culture.”

It’s been a almost 130 years since Mark Twain brought the pleasures of landing – and eating -- a channel catfish to a public enraptured with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

Chat says “And through the production and through the processing we’ve just made it readily accessible in its finest dining form. I would say now to all of our local citizens and to everyone throughout the U.S.”

These days, millions of fans of the whiskered, meaty fish who don’t have a hook, line – or a lazy afternoon to catch their own – depend on “farms” like this:  America’s Catch in Itta Bena, Mississippi.  If you look around there are thousands of acres of man-made ponds, where millions of catfish are raised from tiny eggs to entrees. In the heart of catfish country, Mississippi leads America in the production of the country’s fourth most popular food fish.  The state ships 350-million pounds across the Heartland every year. 

Their ancestral home in the muddy shallows of the Mississippi River helped make catfish a perfect fish for farming.  Fish farmers say they’re a hardy species that can tolerate dense stocking.  They spawn easily when conditions are right, yet they stop once they’re placed in the so-called “grow-out ponds.” 

That gives the farmer control over the whole production process. The small catfish readily accept manufactured feed and eat heartily for two years or so. Once they’ve grown to one to three pounds each, and it’s time for the net.

Bobby Giachelli oversees that operation, “They’ll stretch a net all the way across one end of the pond and- and up both sides about 50 yards or so, and pull that net to one end of the pond, work all of that concentration of fish into a holding net with a bottom and all on it. At that point, they’ll tighten it up and load it with hydraulic boom trucks and scales onto a live haul truck, which has aeration and so forth in the tanks, and haul it to our processing plant, where it will be processed today.”

A short haul from the ponds, these fish go into chilled vats. The last brief stop before the fish become the products their customers are waiting for.

But the hundreds of thousands of pounds of catfish have another “net” to jump through. Her name is Mary Dudley. She checks the catfish harvest for flavor-cooking a small amount of each batch and tasting them in the “America’s Catch” test kitchen.

She says, “We’re tasting for the off flavor, like the musty, the blue green, this tastes good to me.  Tastes like fish.”  But like the taste tester of fine wines, Mary will simply taste and spit out the small portion of fish. Then she’ll move on to the next batch.

In nearby Indianola, Mississippi Evelyn Roughton is “kicking it up a notch,” as a well-known chef might say. Evelyn serves catfish at the Crown Restaurant...but not fried!

She says, “We cook it every way but fried. This order is being poached and that brings out some of the oils and that makes even a healthier fish because you’ve got a little bit of the oil out and it’s going to absorb every bit of the butter sauce I’m going to give it. Then we take this and throw it under the broiler and give it a really nice brown sauce That’s just the way we like it.  Look at that. See that crustiness and the butter?”

And looking to the future? Mississippi’s catfish farmers are banking on creative cuisine like Evelyn’s to spread the fish’s popularity in all corners of the Heartland. Where this crop is concerned – they say they have plenty more acres to “grow” on.

A Popular Fish!
Channel catfish and blue catfish are the most commonly eaten varieties in the United States. There are dozens of species of catfish around the world. One European type can grow up to 14 feet in length. And Africa is home to an electric freshwater catfish capable of producing some 350 volts.