Catfish farmers fending off rivals

27 November 2006, at 12:00am

US - They don't look too much like catfish. They don't taste like them, either at least to catfish connoisseurs. But Vietnamese basa and tra fish often fool consumers in the United States, where they're sometimes billed as Asian catfish. Sometimes they're even labeled Delta grown. That's the Mekong Delta, not the Mississippi.

American-bred catfish — mostly farmed in the southeast United States — dominate the world market, but the region's farmers are on the defensive against growing foreign competition of basa and tra, cheaper breeds that threaten U.S. catfish superiority.

Meeting recently in Atlanta to promote American-bred catfish, industry leaders voiced their frustration with how Chinese and Vietnamese farmers have been nibbling away at their customers with prices that are between 50 cents and a dollar per pound cheaper.

While the federal government predicts that 560 million pounds of American farm-raised catfish will be processed this year, a drop of 15 percent from three years ago, foreign rivals are making up ground.

Source: Mcall

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