Clarion-Ledger, Jackson
Delta Council Day: Catfish on the plate and on the minds of farmers
By Mac Gordon, Guest Columnist
Delta folk are known in some circles for walking with more of a swagger than the average Mississippian, but Delta Council Day is when they really strut their stuff.
Once a year at Delta State University in Cleveland, flatland farmers and business and professional leaders from the northwest Mississippi region break out their new poplin suits or seersucker sport coats, or the latest spring dress wear and bowknot-enhanced derby hats, and parade the well-coiffed landscape for the annual meeting sponsored by the regional economic development organization.
At the end of this year’s event on Friday, secret agents who’ve been patrolling the grounds looking for the ultimate dernier cri will announce their “best dressed” selections, and then everybody will return home to face the real world again. This year, that’s manifested in the fact that a new policy-setting farm bill is in peril in Congress.
Meeting-goers will have heard a top-shelf speaker discuss pivotal issues ranging from the future of agriculture to world peace. They will also be treated to a fried catfish lunch prepared by a team of chefs worthy of a James Beard award.
This is the meeting where in 1947 Dean Acheson, a top aide to President Truman, announced details of the Marshall Plan to help rebuild war-ravaged regions of Europe after World War Two. It’s also where in 1952, two years after winning the Nobel Prize for literature, Mississippi novelist William Faulkner sharply criticized the country’s welfare system. Not one for very many formal public appearances, some said he accepted the invitation only because he needed the speech fee to buy a new Jeep.
State and national political and military leaders, leading farm-policy experts and an array of astronauts and scientists have been the meeting’s headliners. One of the best photographs I ever snapped of a politician was of then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, speaking in the mid-1980s on Delta Council Day, one of 13 I covered for my Leland Progress newspaper.
Leland is next door to Delta Council’s headquarters at Stoneville in Washington County, where some of the world’s foremost farm research is conducted. Keeping that station funded and properly staffed is a major thrust of the Delta Council annually.
Until May 18 when the U.S. House of Representatives upended plans for the new farm bill, area leaders were hoping to hear a glowing report on that legislation, which mainly sought to realign the nation’s food stamp program. Of more interest to farmers across the 18-county Mississippi Delta area, however, was a provision offering financial stability for cotton growers. This amendment to the bill was the equivalent of a baseball walk-off home run for the Delta by former U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran before his recent retirement.
Farm income is at its lowest level in a decade, USA Today reported recently, citing the USDA. That’s the real world facing Delta and U.S. agriculture overall.
Delta Council Day’s participants will be united in their stand to make sure that imported catfish-like products, mainly from Vietnam, face tougher inspections from federal food-safety experts. This “trash fish” found on some U.S. market shelves threatens Mississippi’s catfish industry, worth $180 million to the state’s economy. The issue, long fought in Washington, has been championed lately by Cochran’s successor, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, getting her congressional feet wet on legislation dear to the heart of Mississippians.
That good ol’ Mississippi catfish will be front and center at Cleveland — not only on lunch plates but also on the minds of producers trying to stay in business.
Mac Gordon is a part-time resident of McComb. He is a former reporter for the Clarion Ledger.