A Louisiana shrimper adjusts rope on his shrimp boat at the Port of Delcambre in May. Photo: Paul Kieu, The Advertiser
by Ken Stickney
The price of Gulf of Mexico shrimp has soared this year, the beneficiary of a malady that has beset the competing Asian shrimp farm market and some U.S. sanctions on unfair trade practices elsewhere.
But for many Louisiana shrimpers, a scarcity of product in the Gulf this year has made the suddenly higher prices seem an empty victory.
The catches are low; shrimpers are not coming in with what they can usually catch,” said Thomas Hymel of the LSU AgCenter Sea Grant Extension. “The catches are down, the prices are up.” Photo: Ed Lallo/Newsroom Ink
“The catches are low; shrimpers are not coming in with what they can usually catch,” said Thomas Hymel of the LSU AgCenter Sea Grant Extension. “The catches are down, the prices are up.”
“Everybody is scrambling,” said Cheryl Granger of Vermilion Parish, who shrimps with her husband Albert on the Miss Brittany G, a shrimp boat named for their daughter. “There is just not much shrimp.”
“Normally we catch 2,000 pounds the opening day,” Granger said. “We caught 300. That’s a big number difference there.”
That’s a big difference at a time when Louisiana’s shrimp industry, which supports 14,000 jobs and has an annual economic impact of $1.3 billion, was poised to make headway against international competition.
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