Crawfish catch low; tradition of spring boils boosts demand

Dry weather and unusual temperature changes are blamed for a low crop this year just as crustacean fans prepare for crawfish boils at backyard bashes.

“Well, it’s picked up from what it was a couple of weeks ago, but we’re so far behind there’s no way of making it up,” said crawfish farmer and Louisiana Crawfish Farmers Association President David Savoy.

According to the LCFA head, the crawfish industry produced 250 million pounds of the tasty mudbugs in 2010. Approximately 85 percent were farm raised and 15 percent were collected wild. “We would be lucky to have 150 million [pounds this year],” Savoy said. “That’s a big difference.”

Prior to 2000, and before a series of devastating hurricanes that started with Katrina in 2005, Louisiana crawfish farmers had increased the size of their farms as the number of areas designated for commercial production grew by nearly 25 percent. During the same time, crops such as sugar, cotton and rice declined in production.

“It is very labor intensive,” Savoy said. “An average farmer [of grains or grasses] will run over [an acre] of land two or three times a year. We run over an acre every day for 200 days.”

The typical crawfish season begins in mid-November and can continue until mid-August. Savoy said that colder than normal temperatures during January and February this year, combined with May and June-like temperatures during April, and drought conditions harmed production and the crawfish crop size for 2011.

Louisiana crawfish is a cultural and economic marketing tool for promoters of the state. A reduced supply could ultimately impact tourism, restaurants and hospitality businesses.

“Mother Nature has not thrown us one curveball. It turned on the pitching machine and threw a whole bunch of them at once,” Savoy said. “It’s going to be a short year.”