WASHINGTON–Mississippi Delta catfish farmers face a variety of challenges that can affect their output and their livelihoods and there may be room to help in the new Farm Bill. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith invited a catfish farmer to testify Wednesday in front of the Commodities, Risk Management and Trade Subcommittee.
“We experience a nearly constant disaster due to federally-protected migratory birds eating out fish,” said Christan Good, who operates Christian Good Farms in Macon. “It sum totals up to approximately $65 million a year.”
That figure is industry-wide in Mississippi.
“That cost goes from trying to scare off the birds, to the birds eating the fish, which is our final product, to the diseases that can infiltrate a pond from those migratory birds.”
Good said farmers need a safety net, which he says is “long overdue”.
Hyde-Smith said in a news release it is her hope to continue to build onto the federal safety net, which is money that can be loaned or granted farmers to help make them whole, so that young people will willingly become farmers and ranchers.
