Texas January 1 Catfish Sales Up

Issue:  PR-108-08
Released:  January 30, 2008
For information contact: Doug Wong or Charles Drain.

The number of Texas catfish producers increased 7 percent from last year, and catfish sales were up 56 percent according to the January 1, 2008, Catfish Growers Survey.

State Director, David Abbe, of the Texas Field Office reported that there were 61 commercial catfish operators in Texas January 1, 2008.  Total surface water in production was 2,900 acres, up 1,200 acres from the previous year.

Total sales of all catfish in 2007 totaled 9.20 million dollars, up 56 percent from 5.91 million dollars in 2006.

The growers’ inventory of foodsize catfish totaled 12.8 million pounds on January 1, 2008, an increase of 43 percent from the 2007 total of 8.99 million pounds.  Large foodsize catfish accounted for 210,000 pounds; medium foodsize catfish, 5.10 million pounds; and small foodsize catfish, 7.53 million pounds.

Hatchery inventory included 60,000 pounds of broodfish, down 62 percent from a year ago,  155,000 pounds of stockers and 230,000 pounds of fingerlings.

Fingerlings are 2 to 6 inches in length and weigh 2 to 60 lbs. per thousand fish;  stockers are over 60 lbs. to 750 lbs. per thousand fish;  small foodsize fish, over three-fourths pound to one and one-half pounds per fish;  medium food size catfish, over one and one-half to three pounds per fish;  and large foodsize catfish, over three pounds per fish.

The water surface area being used for catfish production in the United States totaled 155 thousand acres, down 6 percent from January 1, 2007.  The total number of operations on January 1, 2008 in the U.S. was 1,064, down 14 percent from January 1, 2007.

Catfish growers in the United States had sales of 445 million dollars during 2007, down 8 percent from last year.  Nationwide there were 293.8 million foodsize fish on hand January 1, 2008, down 6 percent from last year’s 313.1 million fish. Of the total number of foodsize fish, 7.8 million were large foodsize, 90.4 million were medium foodsize and 196 million were small foodsize.&nsp; Growers had a total of 570.4 million stockers on hand, down 1 percent from last year.  There were also 894.0 million fingerlings on hand, down 7 percent from last year.