Governor Jeff Landry has signed a an executive order issuing a disaster declaration for the crawfish aquaculture industry. Landry says the disaster declaration should result in federal assistance for farmers struggling to catch crawfish because of last year’s historic drought. Acadia Parish crawfish farmer Brent Lamm says it’s been rough.
“It’s a whole different ball game this year. This is going to be a year just surviving.”
Lamm says he has 15-hundred acres of ponds in Acadia Parish and he’s only catching a handful of sacks.
“The last two weeks it has gotten a lot better compared to what it was. Still nowhere near what we do on a normal year.”
Louisiana Congressman Troy Carter says Landry’s disaster declaration will allow for crawfish farmers to access disaster loans through the Small Business Administration. Vermilion Parish crawfish farmer Connor Popeck decided it was not worth the effort to flood his field.
“Even in January 1st some fields never really could get flooded unless we got the right amount of rain. So you know that those crawfish borrows being dry that long there’s no chance of catching anything.”
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