The Washington Post has an article on an attempt (passed in the Senate) to have the USDA inspect catfish, like they do meat. There are a lot of catfish grown in the Mississippi Delta, but apparently imports are becoming a problem in the last couple years. So cynics think the inspection provision is just to put another hurdle in the way of imports. Non-cynics would look at the problems with heparin and contaminated corn gluten and say inspection is long overdue.
But House staffers tried to cover all fish, not just catfish, which seems to have been a case of overreaching, maybe fishing from a bridge too far. If the Post is right, a new farm bill, when passed, will not include an inspection provision.
The article triggered my memory, though. (Hopefully accurately--once again I'm too lazy to doublecheck my facts.) Back in the dark ages, maybe the mid 80's, cotton and rice were having their problems so producers in the Delta were looking for alternative crops. Rice fields in particular were candidates for conversion into crayfish and catfish ponds. And it seemed a propitious time to push these products. (Was it then that Rene Prudhomme was big with his Cajun cooking? Maybe so.) The problem was farm program rules--ASCS had this funny idea that land under water, if it wasn't growing rice, wasn't really "cropland". So a rice planter who wanted to switch a field to catfish pond would be reducing his cropland and likely giving up rice base (if the land was fully based--i.e., 1,000 acres of land = 1,000 acres of cropland = 1,000 acres of rice and cotton base).
So someone, probably Rep. Jamie Whitten, included a provision in the farm bill that ensured that the land retained its cropland status. And, unlike fruits and vegetables, producers could grow catfish on their base acres.
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