Louisiana Farm Bureau Working to get Help for Crawfish Farmers
By Keely Ana Strickland
Louisiana Farm Bureau News
This is going to be a year of surviving for Brant Lamm and his family. He and his brother are farmers and together they manage 3000 acres of land, with 1500 of those acres dedicated to crawfish. While that may sound like a lot, they, along with other Louisiana crawfish farmers, are struggling to make ends meet.
“We spent several hundred dollars an acre flushing and fertilizing all summer long and it seems like it was all for nothing at this point,” said Lamm.
He explained that they are two months behind where they usually are at the beginning of Lent. In fact, up until two weeks ago, they were pulling up empty traps. They are seeing a small jump each week, and hope it will be enough.
“At this point, we’re just hoping to break even.”
In a normal season, when families and friends are gearing up for a boil on a Friday afternoon, Lamm typically has 200 sacks of live crawfish in his cooler. This year he had only 30.
Many people want live crawfish this year but cannot afford them at the current price, which peaked at more than $11 per pound. While Louisiana won’t see cheap crawfish like in the past several years, prices are expected to drop once the catch comes up.
“The thing is, crawfish is not more expensive than going to get a steak or something,” Lamm explained. “But you don’t go eat a steak but every two to three weeks. We need people to eat crawfish every week.”
The Lamm brothers are two of the many crawfish farmers in Louisiana struggling this season. Without help from the government, it’s likely many crawfish farmers will have their livelihoods stripped away from them.
“A lot of farmers, if they don’t get any help, may not be here next year,” Lamm said. “They are depending on making it on crawfish.”
This is where Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation (LFBF) comes into play. LFBF Commodity, Public Policy and National Affairs Coordinator Andy Brown said he is calling on the United States government for assistance. He, along with several other crawfish leaders, traveled to Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. in mid-February to talk about the reduced harvests in Louisiana crawfish.
Brown explained that most of their efforts are channeled toward getting the secretary of agriculture to change the Emergency Livestock Assistance Program (ELAP).
“It covers crawfish on a number of things, but droughts just aren’t one of them,” said Brown. “We’ve gone to the agency level, but also to Capitol Hill to hopefully get Congress to instruct the USDA to make that change.”
Brown has been working to incite change since ELAP came about and succeeded in 2021 due to the freeze.
“Since then, we’ve known that droughts could be a challenge for our crawfish producers, so we’ve been working on it for quite a while,” said Brown. “But it’s just come to a head here with the severe and drastic need that we’re seeing this year.”
Brown said he believes the secretary could make this change at any time, but added it sometimes needs a push from the local delegation dealing with that specific issue. Consequently, Brown has called on the eight members of the Louisiana delegation to make these farmers’ voices heard. He said he is thankful for Louisiana native Mike Johnson, working as Speaker of the House, to help propel their mission forward.
“The message was really if you can’t get to a farm bill anytime soon, then we're going to need some other kind of help,” said Brown. “It needs to happen sooner than later and we got that message across loud and clear.”