It's mean in looks and personality - so why is Egyptian fish farmer Hamid Mohammad Abdel Semi keen to breed the native catfish in his ponds? Because, as well as being tasty and fetching a good market price, the Egyptian catfish is tough. It can survive in water with low oxygen levels, is far less sensitive to agricultural pollution than other fish and requires little extra feed. What stopped Hamid stocking catfish in the past was the cost of catfish fry. But now, research by the World Fish Center has overturned the myth that catfish have to be bred in laboratories or caught in the wild, which pushed costs up. They taught Hamid that, by lowering the water level of his pond at the critical time, he could 'trick' his catfish into breeding. With the potential to produce 900 fingerlings or more, Hamid looks forward to profiting greatly from raising his own stock of catfish.