The Lure of Catfish

Row-crop farmers throughout the South are taking a liking to catfish. Rising prices for catfish, combined with falling feed prices, have made the lure of catfish farming irresistible. Crop farmers are building ponds, buying aeration equipment, and breeding catfish in record numbers. Production has doubled in the last 15 yearsto 340 million pounds this yearand looks to keep increasing as farmers shift from row crops to catfish.Steve Hollingsworth, a Greensboro, Alabama farmer, now has ten ponds, each holding about 100,000 fish. He spends $18,000 a week on feed for the 1 million fish in his ponds. But he says the business is good; he takes in about $60,000 a week in sales. Crop farmers in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana are taking the bait.Source: Media reports, 1993.

Instructions: In part a, enter your response as a whole number. In part b, round your response to two decimal places.

a. How many fish did farmer Hollingsworth have in inventory?

b. If each of his fish weighed 3 pounds, what percent of the market did he have?

%