Louisiana
On the banks of Bayou Barataria, a pelican glides over the top of the brackish water, which is so calm you can hear waves lapping against the shore. Stacks of crab traps and fishing nets lay idle on the shoreline. Occasionally, there is the whir of a propeller, which barely registers above the sound of wildlife, puttering as it pushes a boat around debris on the bottom of the bayou.
Hurricane Ida, and three others in two years, has thrown the Gulf seafood industry into turmoil. Add to that Covid, unprecedented fuel prices, new state and federal fishing regulations, inflation and a tight labor market; the result has been astronomical seafood costs for both the individual consumer and restaurants across the country.
U.S. Congressmen Garret Graves of Louisiana and Jerry Carl of Alabama recently sent a letter to Thomas Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, requesting the department once again purchase Gulf shrimp under Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act to be donated to schools, the underprivileged and disaster relief groups.
“Everything is tied to the water,” said Tracy Kuhns, President of the GO FISH Coalition, formed after the BP oil spill in 2010 as an advocate for commercial fishing. “It’s just part of your everyday life. The way you live.”
Fifty-five years and more than a dozen hurricanes later, Jean Lafitte shrimp dock owner Randy Nunez has had enough. Hurricane Ida dealt the deathblow to a dock where as a kid he would work with his father and listen to tales told by shrimpers as he unloaded their boats.
Gulf Crown Seafood’s Jeff Floyd and his son Jon agree that every year in the seafood business is unique. Each year new problems arise and are added to the same old ones continuously sticking around. Last year new problems arising from Covid and Hurricane Ida were added to the old ones; H2B visiting worker visa, labor shortages, import prices and product availability.
Before Hurricane Ida, Montegut oysterman Mark Naquin admits the last couple of year’s production on his leases was slow. He had hope 2021 would be better. Recent plantings showed baby oysters everywhere. Then the storm undid his hard work leaving his business in shambles.
An average consumer in the U.S. spends a $1.50 to eat approximately a third of a pound of oysters a year according to a calculation in a recently released video by Dr. Ben Posadas, an associate extension research professor at Mississippi State University. With no available official estimates on oyster per capita consumption, Dr. Posada arrived at his estimate by dividing total oyster supply or expenditures by the current population.
A variety of factors over the past years have melded together placing live bait shop owners under duress; frequent hurricanes, oil spills, dead zones and fish kills in the Gulf, as well as an ever changing landscape of waterways due to fresh-water diversions of the Mississippi River. Available, affordable live bait is crucial to the recreational fishing industry, but at the moment it is harder to come by and even more expensive to purchase.
Coastal Louisiana’s historic connection to the Pacific Rim endures is enshrined in a new book by Carl A. Brasseaux and Donald W. Davis – ASIAN-CAJUN FUSION: SHRIMP FROM THE BAY TO THE BAYOU. The book illustrates the history of the Asian influence on Louisiana’s shrimping industry.
A large majority of Louisiana’s crabs comes from the waters of the Barataria Estuary, situated between the Mississippi River and Bayou Lafourche. Scott Sugasti has been on those waters working his traps since an early age, and as one of the younger crabbers on the bayou he knows hard work is the key to success. Since Hurricane Ida he has had to work harder at avoiding numerous pitfalls the storm has caused for local fishermen.
Fishermen, processors, distributors, economic developers, and public officials are being invited to Baton Rouge to discuss findings from more than three years of research done in Louisiana’s coastal and inland fisheries at the launch of the Louisiana’s Freshwater Seafood Economic Development Report. The original study, Community Economic Development in Rural Coastal Acadiana Parishes, was conducted in 2018-19, prior to the four hurricanes devastating the state’s seafood industry.
The first win by the Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition to secure funding for a seafood industry destroyed by four hurricanes over two years is happening in the Louisiana State Legislature. House Bill 1 (HB1), which provides for the ordinary operating expenses of state government for the upcoming fiscal year, currently includes $5 million designate for debris cleanup and vessel removal clogging bayous and waterways.
What do you do after graduating culinary arts school? Marry your sweetheart of course. Then open an award winning farm-to-table restaurant, open the best new restaurant in New Orleans, have your own cooking show on the Food Network, and then – and only then – become executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. This is the storied life of Samantha Carroll, who with her husband Cody, have been dubbed “The King and Queen of Louisiana Seafood.”
One parish in Louisiana has already started to prepare for cleanup from the next storm. St. Tammeny Parish, stretching from Slidell to Covington on the northern banks of Lake Pontchartrain, has issued a Request for Proposals (RPF) for emergency, infrastructure restoration, debris removal and disposal that include waterways in the Parish maintenance system.
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