Dynamic Effects of Grain and Energy Prices on the Catfish Feed and Farm Sectors

This study examines the dynamic effects of grain prices and energy prices on catfish feed prices and the price of food-sized catfish at the farm level. Using the autoregressive distributed lag model and bounds testing procedure, a long-run relationship between feed and farm prices and their determinants was confirmed. Given the effect of corn and soybean meal prices on catfish feed prices, and catfish fish feed prices on farm prices, the long-run responsiveness of feed prices to a percentage increase in U.S. ethanol production is 0.325, and the responsiveness of catfish farm prices is 0.064. Although both feed and farm prices increase with ethanol production, the relatively small responsiveness of farm prices when compared with feed prices suggests that catfish farmers are worse off. Results are conditional on ethanol production causing an increase in grain prices.