Tag: Featured
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.
Since 2020 COVID-19 has significantly impacted the entire U.S seafood industry. In the Gulf of Mexico oyster, shrimp and finfish fishermen were just a few of the hardest hit. In Maine, the lobster fishery suffered a similar fate. It is important to realize Gulf fishermen are not alone in their struggles to recover.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
For Louisiana restaurants, certain seafood costs have risen so much that once-standard fares, such as oyster sandwiches and pastas, are no longer served.
by Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News Editor The pots were hot and the stoves sizzling at NOLA Navy Week’s Louisiana Seafood Cook-Off held on the Riverwalk at the Spanish Plaza behind the Four Seasons Hotel. Naval culinary specialists from France and the United States used to cooking on the high seas were pared with land-loving local Louisiana […]
Sea Grant’s mission is to enhance the practical use and conservation of coastal and marine resources in order to create a sustainable economy and environment. With four hurricanes in two years, Julie Lively, the executive director of Louisiana Sea Grant at LSU, has had to balance the organizational mission with that of assisting the state’s seafood community’s recovery from the storms.
On Florida’s west coast increased development and pollution stress antiquated wastewater systems causing a release of inadequately treated water into rivers and streams; water runoff from storms carry nutrients across fertilized lawns and paved surfaces; all this water eventually ending in one place – the Gulf of Mexico – harming an already fragile ecosystem
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