re: Poorest Region in the Deep South – Mississippi Delta

I have spent 2 weeks of my life in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas on an audit. Truly the biggest shite hole fricking waste of space city in America.
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A friend of mine is from west helena … his third grade teacher was Muriel Wilkins who was immortalized in the Marc Cohn song “ walking in Memphis “

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They still are. They actually resurrected about 1500 acres of old farms around the plant recently and are growing fish again instead of only buying from Mississippi/Alabams farmers Guidrys in south Louisiana is a major industry player and one of the biggest processors. They own 3 production farms in Mississippi. Louisiana was left for dead years ago as a major catfish producer but recently has started a comeback

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I know old man Pete Haring used to personally host Gov. Foster on duck hunts in south Franklin parish back in the 90s. His granddaughter is in charge of ops now. I used to go to school with her.

The Clintons killed it as if the catfish knew their deep dark secrets.

In Louisiana and Mississippi?? Yea the lead flies. For a variety of reasons.

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What happened to the catfish industry? Imported catfish?

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Imports, and it got so big so fast it oversaturated the market. And a whole lot of greed and dysfunction within the industry itself. Particularly with Delta Pride and its farmer stockholders. That company made up 50% of the industry’s production and the farmers controlled the plants. About the time the imports came on the scene and prices of US catfish naturally dropped to compete, the farmers got upset with the low prices and as stockholders forced Delta Pride to keep the pond bank price high, and if the plant lost money each stockholder had to pay some back based on amount of lbs they sold to the plant.

Well what occurred was DP was keeping prices up forcing other processors to follow suit or else no farmer would supply them fish. Then DP stockholder farmers got tired of paying back money to cover plant losses so they reduced sale volume to DP and sold fish to other plants. All the while artificially keeping prices up which caused the way cheaper imports to slowly take market share. Then 2008 market crash happened and input costs skyrocketed while struggling restaurants swapped to imports in a hurry. We went from 80% of the U.S. farmed fish market to 20% in 18 short months. Processing of 550 million lbs in 2007 was 320 million lbs by 2010 and acreage reduced from 150,000 water acres to 80,000. It happened so fast there was no way to reverse the bleeding. It’s been steady since 2010, acreage declined some but processing state between 300-350 million lbs and farmers are producing more per acre due to technology and farming practices improving. We saw acreage growth in 2018 and 2019 for first time since 2003 but covid halted that momentum.

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His granddaughter is in charge of ops now. I used to go to school with her.

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She is umm let’s say a tough one when it comes to business she will dog cuss you in a heartbeat if you send them any fish of a size they didn’t want.

Good post. Correct on Guidry's. I personally love going to Ms. People are great. Hunting is fantastic. About the only difference between the two states is the river, other than French influence in La. Other than that I feel right at home in Ms. I have several friends here who own from a few hundred acres up to 10 acres in Ms. They love it also!

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Issaquena county

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Does anyone still live there? I saw nothing but ghost towns the last time I drove through that area.

And nearby Rolling Fork suffered that huge tornado about a year ago. It will take years to recover from that

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Anything wonderful about it has been long gone.

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I remember as a kid we lived in Wayside on Muscadine rd my dad ran a farm for Farm Fresh out there (it’s a wildlife management area now). Greenville was nice then, I remember going to mall eating at Garfield’s and my mom leaving me in the arcade while she shopped.

It’s sad how far that town has fallen. Clarksdale, Greenville, and Yazoo City have fallen the hardest in the delta. The other larger towns are still holding on ok

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And they have more counties from Kentucky on that list
Just as many from Alabama

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Not sure what list you read as that list has 4 KY counties, 5 MS counties, 3 counties from AL/GA/TX.

All 5 of the MS counties are in or very close to the Delta Region. 4 of those 5 MS counties are in the top 15. KY's poorest County has over double the median household income compared to Issaqueena County in MS with 5k more people.It is what it is.