AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
We're still dealing with the aftermath of this summer's devastating drought. It hurt corn and soybean crops and the farmers who depend on them. The lack of water and high temperatures also delivered a pricey punch to U.S. aquaculture - the business of raising fish for food, like bass and catfish. Worldwide, aquaculture has grown into a $119 billion industry. But U.S. fish farmers have struggled to compete on a global scale.
As Kristofor Husted, of member station KBIA in Colombia, Missouri reports, the drought made that even harder.
KRISTOFOR HUSTED, BYLINE: Dozens of rectangular ponds with rounded corners sit about one mile off the highway her in rural central Missouri. Some of them are empty, some have water, but not one is completely full.
STEVE KAHRS: This unit is a catfish production unit; fingerlings. These fish average eight to 12 inches long. And, you know, it's about little over an acre - about acre and a half unit.
HUSTED: Steve Kahrs, dons a pair of shorts on an unusually warm December day and surveys his ponds. Today, the water is fairly still with a few ripples from the warm breeze. He points to the dirty rings circling up a white PVC pipe, for about a foot, before it becomes white again.
KAHRS: They're out of the water a ways. Now, our average depth in this unit is probably still about five feet. But we're a good 10 to 12 inches down of where we usually would keep it.
HUSTED: Kahrs is the co-owner of Osage Catfisheries in Osage Beach, Missouri.
Kahrs' office sits in a small house next to two tiny ponds where his father first started raising fish more than 60 years ago. Scattered about the property are sinks and large tubs filled with catfish, bluegill and paddlefish. Kahrs says this year, the drought proved to be tough on the family business, one that sorely depends on water.
KAHRS: We did fall short on our production numbers that we wanted.
HUSTED: The dry conditions and high temperatures forced many fish farmers here to dig deep to keep their fish healthy and hungry. For Kahrs, that meant paying for more energy to pump clean, cool water out of his wells and into the ponds around-the-clock.
KAHRS: We probably chewed through about 30 percent more power than we did the year before. And the year before was not that good.
HUSTED: It wasn't just the water level, either. The soaring temperatures in the summer turned up the burner on the ponds. When that happens, oxygen levels in the water drop and the fish's metabolism slows down. To counteract this, Kahrs says he was pumping water nearly every day from April through September.
Farmers also saw the price of fish feed shoot up because it contains fish meal, soy bean and corn.
KAHRS: I would say we've probably seen an increase per ton over the last four years of probably close to 80 to $100. And we saw a huge jump just this summer of, I think it was like 16 to $17 a ton. Which, you know, there's only so long before you have to pass that along.
JOHN HARGREAVES: I think in 2001 there was something like 113,000 acres or so, and now there's like 50,000.
HUSTED: That's John Hargreaves, a former aquaculture professor at Mississippi State University, who now consults for global aquaculture development projects. He says the rising production costs of fish farming, erratic weather, and a less expensive type of catfish from Asia have all hurt the catfish industry here - essentially cutting it in half.
HARGREAVES: Production is down and one of the big drivers for that was the increase in imports of pangasius catfish from places like Vietnam, China, and so forth. So, those imports have basically substituted for domestic catfish.
HUSTED: Between 2010 and 2011, 20 percent of catfish farms shut down. So what can fish farmers do to survive the stiff competition and spells of inhospitable weather? Some researchers have been looking into modifying the pond system to make it more energy efficient. Others are experimenting with new feed recipes requiring less expensive ingredients.
But Hargreaves says even that might be not enough to save this domestic industry.
HARGREAVES: There's no silver bullet or game changer out there. That's for certain.
HUSTED: In the meantime, Steve Kahrs plans to repurpose at least 20 acres of catfish ponds to raise other species like paddlefish and bass. He hopes they'll be more lucrative. But most of all, he's hoping for a solid snow pack this winter and lots of rain in the spring.
For NPR News, I'm Kristofor Husted.