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University of Arkansas serves up curriculum to make fish main ingredient of economy.
A catfish feeds at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s Aquaculture-Fisheries Center in Pine Bluff, Ark.
AP PHOTO
PINE BLUFF, Ark. — Studying fish once seemed so simple: Find out where they were biting and keep it under your hat. Now the study of fish has evolved into Ph.D.-level programs that can make fish bigger, tastier and a larger part of the nation’s economy.
The University of Arkansas’ board of trustees on Friday approved a doctoral program for the Aquaculture-Fisheries Center of Excellence at its Pine Bluff campus. It’s the first Ph.D. program for the 3,000-student campus at the edge of the Arkansas Delta.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stronger and more positive review” of a program proposal, UA system vice president for university relations Dan Ferritor told the UA system board at a meeting Friday in Little Rock.
The doctoral program could give a boost to Pine Bluff, hurt in recent decades by relocation of railroad jobs to other sites and closure of several industries, as well as by the current recession.
Smaller communities in the depressed Delta region should also benefit, as aquaculture farming operations take advantage of the scientific and practical expertise that UAPB has built up over more than 20 years. The nation’s largest fish-feed plant, ARKAT Nutrition, operates in Dumas, population 5,200, working closely with the UAPB program.
While a typical image of fishing involves dropping a line from a bamboo pole, formalized fish farming has been a part of the Arkansas economy for decades.
UAPB opened its Aquaculture-Fisheries Center in 1988 to work with fish farmers of all varieties: catfish farmers raising meat for dining tables, baitfish farmers raising minnows for anglers’ hooks, and others raising ornamental goldfish or goldfish that will end up as food for larger ornamentals in aquariums.
All the feeder goldfish raised in the country come from Arkansas, said Carole Engle, the center’s director.
In addition to conducting research and training people seeking careers in natural fisheries or fish-farming, the center is a major resource for Arkansas’ $130 million fish-farming industry.