Catfish Farmers Press Sanders, Boozman on $1.374 Trillion Farm Bill

Arkansas catfish farmers, ranked third nationally with $19.88 million in sales value, met Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and U.S. Sen. John Boozman on Oct. 27 at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff's Student Engagement Center to press their case for Farm Bill 2.0.

The Senate version, formally the Agricultural Act of 2026, would update 2018 legislation. The House passed its version, HR 7567 (Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2026), 224-200 on April 30. Boozman, R-Rogers, has sponsored a 900-page Senate draft now under discussion.

An online reference guide to the bill puts the 10-year baseline, fiscal years 2027-36, at $1.374 trillion, with about $390 billion in total spending over five years. Nutrition, crop insurance, commodities and conservation account for 99% of that baseline — meaning catfish-specific provisions compete for a thin remaining slice.

What did Boozman promise?

"We're working very hard to get it over the finish line," Boozman said. "I think we've got a really good chance of doing that once the elections are over. We're in a situation where people don't want one side or the other side to have a victory right before the election, but this is something that the average member of Congress understands how difficult it is for our farming community and how desperately they need help."

He said about 85% of the Farm Bill has passed the House, and Congress is helping catfish farmers market their product domestically and overseas. The caveat: none of this becomes law until the Senate acts, and Boozman himself concedes election-year politics have stalled movement.

What do the growers want?

Brad Graham, a catfish processor and producer in Portland, Ashley County, said imported catfish served in restaurants has cut into Arkansas producers' bottom line. His distribution problem is structural, not just competitive.

"As far as getting the Arkansas product in the restaurants, I think it's more of a push for our distribution to supply that," Graham said. "Currently for us to get Arkansas catfish in a restaurant, we have to distribute that personally, so I have to have a drop truck. When I do that, I cut my DC guy out, my PFG, my Sysco, my Ben E. Keith, whoever I'm selling to, and he doesn't want me looking around him."

Graham also wants more recognition of Arkansas-raised catfish served in-state and stronger U.S. Department of Agriculture support. His margin math is blunt: current prices let him survive, but not rebuild.

"Instead of getting our price up so we can recoup and rebuild and replace equipment and get back on our feet for when it does go back down, now we're getting to a point where we're surviving, but when it goes back down, we've still got ponds that need to be rebuilt and equipment that has to be replaced," Graham said.

How do fuel costs figure in?

Fuel was the most concrete cost item on the table. Graham runs about 65 aerator tractors on sidewinder and backup aeration.

"If we run 50 per night at 10 gallons of fuel in each tractor, I'm burning through 500 gallons of fuel in those tractors, just to keep fish alive," he said. "And then, when we're moving dirt and running generators for electricity, I'm burning 600 to 700 gallons a day just to move dirt."

He said he hopes farmers will see relief from rising fuel costs — a wish, not a provision, and no specific bill mechanism was named.

What about bird predation?

Dick Baxter of Baxter Land Co., a Desha County hatchery, called for controlling cormorants and their eggs on nesting grounds in the Great Lakes states, where the birds are native.

"The birds eat a lot of our fish, and so I would rather the birds ate wildfish rather than some of my farm-raised fish," Baxter said. "I don't want them on my farm."

He described losses from invasive bird populations as "staggering" and worsening, but declined to give a dollar figure — so the scale of the damage remains unquantified.

"The dollar number is staggering, and it's getting worse," Baxter said. "Those populations are expanding and exploding, and it's only getting worse, and so we'd like to see something done to help alleviate that."

What else is in the bill for Arkansas?

Sanders, who faces State Sen. Fred Love (D-Mabelvale) and Libertarian Colt Shelby in the Nov. 3 general election, highlighted a school program serving only Arkansas-grown products in lunchrooms for a day. "Catfish has become a big one for the protein and for a lot of the schools that bring that in," she said.

Boozman noted Farm Bill 2.0 addresses funding for extension and agricultural research at 1890 land-grant institutions such as UAPB, alongside catfish health research and marketing work already done.

Baxter credited Boozman's continued work on industry issues, saying growers "greatly appreciate everything that he's done and his staff, and everyone in Congress is helping us." With midterms approaching, Boozman expressed confidence senators can pass Farm Bill 2.0 — a bill whose final text and timing remain unwritten.