Louisiana Crawfish Producers Suffering From Low Prices

By Don Molino

Voice of Louisiana Agriculture Radio Network

This crawfish season is starting to wind down across Louisiana. The Chairman of the Louisiana Crawfish Research and Promotion Board, David Savoy from Church Point, says this is probably the worst season in 40 years.

“It’s not the crawfish, it’s not the size (because) the production was decent to good,” said Savoy. “But the sales are absolutely horrible. We could live with that if the price wasn’t $1.25 (to) $1.35.”

Savoy pointed out the price for crawfish, live and boiled, is so far away from what the consumer is paying “and that’s what people need to understand.”

“The money in this is very hard to come by because consumption is limited and turned into pretty much a week-end deal. But our costs, the cost of everything we touch has gone up and our crawfish are at 1970s prices. We can’t take 2 or 3 years of these prices. We can’t survive,” said Savoy.