Mississippi Commercial Finfish Industry
The primary food fish species harvested include red snapper, redfish, seatrout, flounder, mullet, and sheepshead. The bulk of the volume of finfish collected for industrial uses consists of menhaden. The annual finfish commercial landings averaged 243 million pounds in the past decade, valued at $18 million.
Commercial finfish landings contributed 97 percent of the total Mississippi commercial landings from 2009 to 2018. In dockside values, finfish landings added 45 percent to Mississippi commercial landing values during the past decade.
In response to requests by state regulatory agencies and seafood organizations, the 2009 (and later) economic contributions of the Mississippi seafood industry by major species were imputed from state estimates published by NOAA Fisheries. Extension and research publications were developed to document the economic contributions of the major seafood species landed, processed, sold, and consumed in Mississippi.
Sales are the gross sales by businesses within the economic region affected by an activity. Sales, income, value-added, and tax contributions are measured in dollars. Employment or job contribution is expressed in terms of a mix of both full-time and part-time jobs. The total economic contribution is the sum of direct, indirect, and induced contributions.
The economic contributions of the state finfish industry in 2009 are shown in the table below. The sales contributions reached $101.91 million in 2009 and generated 2,445 full-time and part-time jobs. The income contribution was $40.45 million, and the value-added created was $52.6 million. The industry added tax impacts reaching $4.68 million.
Lesser economic contributions of the Mississippi finfish industry were estimated in 2011, as shown in the table below. The sales contributions of the sector fell to $81.64 million, which generated 2,003 full-time and part-time jobs. Income contribution reached $33.14 million, and value-added created was $42.75 million. The industry made tax impacts totaling $6.99 million.
Updated estimates of the 2015 economic contributions of the finfish industry in Mississippi are shown below. The sales contribution of the industry reached $215 million. The value-added contribution created by the industry reached over $108 million. The industry generated more than 4,300 full-time and part-time jobs and income contributions amounting to more than $82 million.
