These projects are very important to ensure that Alabama maintains its prominent role in agriculture industries like catfish, cotton and peanuts, and continues to succeed as a top producer in these and other industries. While the industry has enormous potential for increased growth, expansion is greatly hampered by infectious diseases which affect farm-raised catfish each year. In fact, such diseases claim as much as 50 percent of each year's catfish crop. Ultimately, eradication of infectious diseases is essential to the future of the catfish industry. Currently there are only a limited number of approved therapeutic compounds available for farmers to use to treat diseases of fish.
Vaccinations appear to be the best means for preventing diseases.
Although there are no commercially available catfish vaccines at the present time, preliminary research at the USDA-ARS Fish Disease and Parasites Research Laboratory indicates that catfish vaccination is technically feasible. The development of vaccines for the four major catfish diseases will require a multi-disciplinary effort by scientists having expertise in immunology, molecular biology, microbiology, parasitology and epidemiology. Senator Shelby was able to secure continued funding for aquaculture and fish disease research to be conducted at the Agricultural Research Service facilities located at Auburn University. Additionally, Senator Shelby was able to obtain funding for greatly needed renovations and the purchase of equipment essential to modernizing and expanding the workload capacity at the laboratory. Peanut allergies present a major health problem for a large number of Americans.