Crawfish Farming Isn't Just for Anyone

By Don Molino, The Voice of Louisiana Agriculture Radio Network

Jody Meche is a Louisiana crawfish producer from St. Martin Parish. He says quite a lot goes into bringing Louisiana crawfish to the consumer.

“This past crawfish season I started in February. Sometime it’s a little slower that time of year but sometimes you can catch a significant amount of crawfish to make money,” said Meche. “But for the first two to three months of the season I was probably about $4000 out of pocket until maybe the second week of April before I finally started catching enough to make up that $4000 loss and actually start making enough to apply toward my income.”

Meche says crawfish farming “is a gamble. Depends on Mother Nature. We don’t know when we’re gonna get the water and get the right conditions. So you’re just taking a gamble. But you have a lot of knowledge that goes along with that.”

“It’s not just anybody that can jump into that (crawfish farming) and can go ahead and catch enough crawfish to make a living at it” Meche pointed out.

“It (crawfish farming) needs to be appreciated,” says Meche. “ When you can get ‘em, be glad you can get ‘em!”