US to invest US$50 million on fish feed to sustain aquaculture industry

US is planning to invest US$50 million on fish food in a stimulus package intended to help keep afloat the aquaculture industry already struggling from foreign competition after feed prices surged 50 percent last year.

According to local news reports, the stimulus package could provide algae to feed clam and oyster larvae along the Pacific coast, fill the bellies of tilapia in Arizona and feed catfish, trout and gamefish in the Midwest and South.

In recent figures from the US Department of Agricultre, the aquaculture industry was worth US$1.4 billion in sales in 2007, with catfish accounting for one-third of those sales, and leading producers from Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas.

Arkansas-based National Aquaculture Association vice president Mike Freeze said many fish farmers live in poor areas and are struggling with a "double whammy" of higher feed and operational costs and increased foreign competition.