Alabama is one of the top four states to produce aquaculture. Aquaculture farming is the production of fish, shrimp, and frogs. Together, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, produce 95% of the catfish grown in the United States. Alabama grows a lot of catfish. Catfish is raised in man-made ponds. They are built up from the ground with a levee surrounding them and average about 6 feet deep. You have probably seen a catfish pond, just didn't realize what you were looking at.

Catfish Ponds Catfish Ponds

What do you really know about the fish you eat?

Have they been exposed to toxins or chemicals?
Have they been exposed to antibiotics?
Are they genetically engineered?
Where were they caught?
How long ago were they caught?
How old are they by the time you buy them?
What have they been eating?
What kind of water do they live in?
How did they get to the processor?
What kind of shape were they in upon reaching the processor?
How are they processed?
How are they packaged?

These questions are what catfish producers must answer in order to get the safest and best quality product to you the consumer.

*Here is how it works:

Farm-raised catfish are fed a puffed, high-protein floating food pellet (a mixture of soybeans, corn, wheat, vitamins and minerals) produced by area feed mills. The specially formulated feed is one of the reasons for catfish's subtle taste and absence of "fishy" odor.

Catfish Harvesting Nets After 18 months, or when the fish reach about 1.5 pounds each, they are harvested with seines (large weighted nets) and loading baskets, then taken alive to processing plants in aerated tank trucks.

Once the catfish reach the plants, the whole production process takes less than 30 minutes, making genuine U.S. farm-raised catfish among the freshest fish available. The catfish are cleaned, processed and placed on ice or frozen to temperatures of 40° below zero using an individually quick-frozen (IQF) method that preserves the taste and quality of the fish.

Catfish must pass stringent taste tests at the ponds where they are raised and undergo inspections by the U.S. Department of Commerce (USDC) at the processing plants before they can carry the "Certified Processors" seal confirming that they have met the highest standards set by The Catfish Institute (TCI), an association of catfish farmers, processors and feed manufacturers. Implemented in 1987, the quality control program preceded the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) mandatory regulatory system for the seafood industry, called Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP), which was instituted in 1994 to prevent food and safety problems before they occur. *Information on this page provided by The Catfish Institute.

Cartoon CatfishClick on the catfish to get Alabama's statistics on catfish production.