Catfish Farmers Fight Fish Glut and High Feed Prices

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Saturday, September 01, 2012

Catfish Farmers Fight Fish Glut and High Feed Prices

By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.

WASHINGTON — In the federal government’s efforts to help farmers and ranchers survive this year’s devastating drought, perhaps the most surprising step has been a dose of support for struggling producers of catfish.

It’s not that their ponds, shimmering across some of the poorest counties from Alabama to Arkansas, were drying up, although the catfish industry has been shriveling for 10 years.

Rather, catfish assistance came as part of a $170 million federal purchase of pork, chicken, lamb and fish announced in early August, all intended to prop up farmers hit by skyrocketing prices of feed like corn and soybeans.

The Agriculture Department, in addition to its routine purchases for school lunches and food banks, would buy an extra $10 million of catfish, the administration announced.

That would be more catfish than the government bought all last year, and enough to put a significant dent in a glut of catfish that has left fish farmers squeezed this year between rising feed costs and falling prices for the fish.

Whether it is enough to head off the continuing collapse of the industry is another question, catfish specialists say.

“I think we are seeing a change before our very eyes, quicker than we ever dreamed,” said Roger Barlow, executive vice president of the Catfish Farmers of America. “We have never had as high a feed cost and at the same time seen our pond-bank price go down,” Mr. Barlow said.

A $10 million purchase, at recent prices paid by the government, would be more than three million pounds of frozen catfish.

“That’s not a lot, but it can’t help but help,” said Craig Tucker, a catfish expert and former director of the Thad Cochran National Warmwater Aquaculture Center of Mississippi State University, in Stoneville.

For more, visit www.nytimes.com.

Energy Spurs Recovery in Houston

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times
Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Energy Spurs a Recovery in Houston Real Estate 

By KRISTINA SHEVORY

HOUSTON — In most cities, companies are holding tight, mothballing office expansions and delaying new hires. But not in Houston.

Powered by a rise in oil prices and a shale exploration boom, Houston is the first major metropolitan region to regain all the jobs it lost in the recession. The region added about 76,000 jobs last year, according to the Texas Workforce Commission, and is on pace to pick up tens of thousands more this year.

Oil and gas companies, from the biggest names like Exxon Mobil to the smallest independents, are dusting off plans to expand, relocate or put up new buildings. Last year, 1.8 million square feet of commercial space was vacuumed up, and real estate brokers expect the same or greater this year. “No question, it’s energy,” said Jim Arket, a senior vice president at Grubb & Ellis in Houston. “That’s been the plus multiplier of Houston.”

The resurgence can be partly tied to the lifting in fall 2010 of the government moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill. The bulk of the gulf’s drilling and profits comes from those offshore waters. Shale drilling has also bolstered balance sheets.

Nexen, a Canadian company, is moving its American headquarters from Plano, Tex., to Houston after it received permits to restart deepwater drilling in the gulf. “Houston is quite clearly the place to be for a deepwater operator,” said Grant Dreger, the vice president for finance and administration at Nexen Petroleum U.S.A. “You have loads of deepwater talent, and it’s home to the majority of our joint venture partners.”