Paging Delta Land

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What is the story about the guys at Alabama Catfish? I have heard somethings but I don’t know if the rumors are true

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You’ll have to be a little more specific on rumors. They changed management recently if that’s what you’re referring to. Or are you referring to them buying out another large farm?

Did they buy another farm in the area?

A realtor called me one day talking about some ponds possibly coming up for sale, and he was “getting it in the works”. He sent me a pin on Delta Aqualands East of 7, but I told him my boss wasn’t interested. I was told later by the manager at a New Years Eve party that they weren’t for sale. I am pretty sure he was the manager, it was my 1st time to meet him and it was at a New Years Eve party.

I googled it and all I saw was that the Biden admin wants to dump a shitton of Vietnamese catfish on the market without tariffs. I didn't really understand it all but it did make me want some USA fried catfish for real.

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mortality from predators,

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What kind of predators are you seeing the most impact from?

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I know of a guy that got caught selling corn out the back of his trailer on his way to farmers grain. Left my FIL’s field and he waited a little bit and followed him. Found him pulled over with people in the back scooping corn out in 5 gallon buckets. This was in the last decade. Guess they were selling it for deer corn.

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This is how I saw it going down……if it was a thing.

And these things do happen.

Locally, a famous fire killed a lot of people in Hamlet NC.

The owner was tired of his processers stealing chicken from Perdue Hamlet Plant, ( i believe it was Perdue)

They ignored osha and started locking the doors so they could inspect workers on the way out, daily .

Fire happened and workers could not get out.

Employee embezzlement is a thing. But I’d beleive you if you said it is not the case in Ala.

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figured it was a lot easier for the catfish farmers to have a good idea on how many #’s of fish they would be able to harvest in a pond by figuring percentages unless something crazy happened like the drought we had or losing power and that was the only way to run aeration.

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If you’re very experienced you can. But AC is a corporate company owned by an investment group, and that tends to cause issues between owners and managers. Because they look at what’s on paper and don’t like to hear what the manager has to report. Because you never, ever get the fish out of a pond at harvest that the computer says you have in there. It’s why a lot of people got out of the catfish business, it’s stressful as hell having a crop that you can’t really see until you harvest it.

But from what I understand on the AC deal, they had a good crop of fish this past year. The guys they fired apparently had the best production the company ever has had the past 5-6 years which is why it surprised so many people. I think they just didn’t make money and the managers got the blame, but I don’t know anyone who was profitable in 2023. It was a bad year for the industry as whole. Inputs were sky high, fish prices down due to declining sales because inflation is squeezing the consumers and thus restaurants causing many to switch to cheap imported fish to save money.

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it’s stressful as hell having a crop that you can’t really see until you harvest it.

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I can understand that. Brookie’s last job was building our bass lake and I was always worried about the bass because I couldn’t see them or even visually see their presence. Turns out I was right, and the company we got the fish from had to restock the lake because they were all dead. (I say “all” because we didn’t shock up a single bass in 40 minutes of shocking)
At least y’all can see them when the feed truck comes by.

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I think they just didn’t make money and the managers got the blame,

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That makes sense. There always has to be a fall guy.

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But AC is a corporate company owned by an investment group

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Really? Are there a lot of investment groups that actually raise fish? I could see leasing the ponds out, but not actually raising the fish. That seems like a sure as frick way to lose money, and that goes for an investment group that actually farms the land instead of just leasing it out.

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Either way i still don't understand how these investment banks have a return buying $8,000.00/acre dirt and $7.bu corn/$1# cotton, etc.

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They likely have tons of dollars and land is a safe place to store them.

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Brookie’s last job was building our bass lake

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Duett from Belzoni?

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Really? Are there a lot of investment groups that actually raise fish?

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Not anymore. And this particular group is just Paul Bryant jr (Bear Bryant’s son) and his wealthy buddies. They own AC, a couple casinos and dog tracks, Bryant bank, and other stuff.

Used to be a ton of big corporations and investment groups when it was a bigger industry but they lost their arse. Hormel owned Farm Fresh catfish that had 14,000 acres and 2 plants but all closed in 2003. Conagra had a plant in Isola (it’s still running but is privately owned now by several farmers under the Country Select and Delta Pride brands).

Goldkist had big operations and shut down.
Several New York and foreign investors used to have farms around here where they bought the ponds and hired managers. They didn’t make it, you have to be on top of things yourself if it’s your money. There were a few investment farms that lasted a long time because they hired good managers but they shut down either because the owners retired and divested from it or the ponds got old and didn’t produce and they refused to invest money to rebuild them. If you don’t rebuild your ponds every 10 or so years production starts to fall due to poor water quality and silting in