Crawfish remained scarce in Louisiana
1/18/2024 12:00:00 AM
CATEGORIES:
Agriculture
Business & Industry
Society & Public Health
AFFECTED AREAS:
Louisiana
Jefferson Parish, LA
Kenner, LA
Marrero, LA
Pointe Coupee Parish, LA
Morganza, LA
Vermilion Parish, LA
Start Date: 1/3/2024
- End Date: 1/18/2024
After the summer drought taking a toll on crawfish, the harvest was much smaller than usual. A crawfish farmer near Morganza was catching just one crawfish every other trap. Only a few crawfish farmers were catching crawfish, hence the high prices.
WAFB-TV CBS 9 Baton Rouge (La.), Jan 18, 2024
Drought in Louisiana dried up crawfish burrows last summer, leading to a very small crawfish harvest at present. One crawfish farmer was normally able to harvest 40 sacks daily, but was only able to get maybe 12 sacks daily this year.
WDSU (New Orleans, La.), Jan 11, 2024
After a summer of intense heat and drought in Louisiana, crawfish for sale have been scarce. A seafood restaurant in Kenner had enough crawfish to serve customers, but has not received any crawfish for shipping to other restaurants and hasn’t heard when they will be in. Business was down 35%.
The owner of a crawfish business in Vermillion Parish stated that production in November and December was just 5%.
Crawfish producers offer the hope that they may be getting some crawfish in the next few weeks, but they’ll be smaller and more expensive—possibly more than $7 per pound.
Crawfish producers also grow rice. The poor production of crawfish is expected to affect growers’ ability to produce rice and may drive up prices.
WWL-TV (New Orleans, La.), Jan 3, 2024
Sources
