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Red Bluff Daily News - Women In Business -Wednesday, October 23, 2019 - 11 CA Insurance License Number OD41159 Juli Foster 530-527-5534 julifoster@allstate.com Auto - Home - Life We can help protect what matters most. Call today for a free quote Local woman heads up U.S. Trout Farmers Association board By Julie Zeeb jzeeb@redbluffdailynews.com @DN_Zeeb on Twitter MANTON >> Te- hama County has national representa- tion in the U.S. Trout Farmers Association, with Manton-based Mt. Lassen Trout Farm President and General Manager Ka- tie Mackey Harris fol- lowing in her parents' footsteps and being selected as president of the association's board. Harris was elected at the annual confer- ence held in Seattle in September. This is the fourth year she has been on the board, but her first as presi- dent. Both her parents are past presidents, she said. "I love representing our farm on a national level," Harris said. "I'm really proud to represent them on a national level and the board I serve with is a remarkable group. It's an honor to serve with them and they are definitely the leaders in US Aquaculture." Mt. Lassen Trout Farm is headquar- tered in Tehama County, but has prop- erty in both Tehama and Shasta counties. It has been in opera- tion since 1949. While Harris was raised on a trout farm, it was not her intended career, having ob- tained a degree in En- glish with plans to be a teacher. Working at the farm was the per- fect job when she had children, as it allowed her to be a mother first and she started out as a part-time employee. "As president of the US Trout Farm- ers Association, my goals are very similar to being president of my company," Harris said. "I want to make sure that we all have jobs not only today and tomorrow, but in 10 years. To figure out how to promote and advocate for the farms and aquaculture. The single biggest chal- lenges for this indus- try are the regulations at the national and state level." Combating the challenges mean not putting your head in the sand and work- ing to educate both the legislators as well as the consum- ers about what the farms do, how they go about their business and why consumers should buy their prod- ucts. "Over 90 percent of the seafood on the shelf comes from an- other country," Harris said. "For our com- pany, three-quarters of our sales are for recreational and about a quarter are direct to a seafood market." During Harris' time as president of the as- sociation, she wants to teach people not only about the health benefits of eating fish but the struggles of the industry. "It's the single most efficient way to feed a growing population re- ally healthy proteins," Harris said. "Catfish is the number one leading US Aquacul- ture commodity, but there's also trout and shellfish. I would like to try and get a unified voice for aquaculture in sharing our story and being an advo- cate. We have some of the most strict stan- dards for our goods, but it costs so much more." The industry needs to do a better job of showing it is a sus- tainable industry, but the regulations are problematic. "Regulations hold us back and put a lot of the small farms out of business," Har- ris said. "One of the things the US Trout Farmers Association funded was a study to show the true cost of raising trout that was done by a third party. The results were and are staggering. The cost per pound in the coastal states is larger than on the national level. We wanted to know the numbers." To read the study on regulation costs, visit h t t p : / / d e p t s . w a s h - ington.edu/wracuw/ f r o n t % 2 0 p a g e / E f - fects-of-Regulations_ Engle.html. For more informa- tion on the United States Trout Farm- ers Association, visit https://ustfa.org/. For more informa- tion on Mt. Lassen Trout, visit www.mt- lassentrout.com. Contact reporter Julie Zeeb at 530-737-5053.

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