Jim Steeby, a Belzoni-based aquaculture specialist for Mississippi State University, said that a bad batch of Vietnamese fish could give a bad name to Mississippi catfish -- and do even more harm to Humphreys County's signature industry.
"We have a reputation in this industry of having an immaculate product, and we don't want it tarnished," he said.
Steeby drove around the two-lane roads of the county, pointing out numerous swaths of land that once held shallow, nine-acre pools of fish -- and were now overrun with weeds or, in the best cases, sown with row crops.
The crops, he said, are not as labor intensive as catfish, another blow to employment in the region.
Steeby stopped at the home of catfish farmer Michael Pruden, 55, who was getting ready to transfer some fish from 160 acres that he was taking out of production.
Later, Pruden and his young daughter switched on an automated feeder to sprinkle his ponds with soy-corn pellets. The placid ponds erupted in splashes as hundreds of the primordial, wide-mouthed creatures rocketed to the surface for lunch.
Steeby said there would always be someone doing this work in a region where a plate of lightly breaded catfish ranks with pan-fried chicken as the mark of a worthy chef.
Pruden, a salty son of farmers in a John Deere ball cap, wasn't so sure.
"Unless it gets better," he said, "there's no future growing fish."
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richard.fausset@latimes.com
richard.simon@latimes.com
