Anybody that makes a living out of the mud and muck of Louisiana's swamps and bayous fishing for crawfish can tell you its hard work. It's also unpredictable work too. The prices ebb and flow with the demands of the season, the quality of the crop, and of course, there's always the weather to deal with. If you toss in a pandemic closing down restaurants and limiting family crawfish boils you've made a tough way to make a dollar even tougher.

Yesterday it was announced that Louisiana's crawfish farmers/fishermen will finally be on the receiving end of some good news. Congressman Ralph Abraham made the announcement yesterday say that Louisiana's crawfish industry will now qualify for federal relief under the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.

Many crawfish farmers found themselves on the outside looking in as the state's restaurants, their largest customers, were forced to lockdown during the peak of the crawfish season. Crawfish suppliers were also dealt a blow when gatherings of large groups of people were also disallowed. This meant no large family crawfish boils or gatherings.

Prices were also affected by a surplus of the mudbugs in the market. After all, with no restaurants needing sacks of crawfish and no South Louisiana Good Friday crawfish boils, there were a lot more crawfish available than people who needed to buy them.

Louisiana's crawfish industry was not included in the original COVID assistance plans but thanks to some very diligent efforts from the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Farm Bureau the policymakers in Washington D.C. were persuaded to include our state's crawfish farm and fishing families.

The assistance will come in the form of cash but you'll need to apply for the program before September 11. You can apply in person at your local FSA office or you can visit this website and make your application online.

 

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