Managing for Profit

Capitalizing on small fish in a small pond

Researcher Dr. Jim Wetzel is on a mission to make small crayfish attractive to a big market for people food.  Wetzel, at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, is among a handful of experts who specialize in small crustaceans.  At the moment, Wetzel consults with a few farmers who raise crayfish, most of them for bait, but some for human consumption.

“The majority of the production is in animals that are generally considered to be too small to market,” Wetzel told Brownfield Ag News at the university’s George Washington Carver Research Farm Aquaculture Center.  “What we’re trying to do is find out ways to make it so that those submarket sized animals are marketable.”

AUDIO: Jim Wetzel (3 min. MP3)