re: Crawfish Price sets Record High

Well, looks like I won't be having many this year

People who take out their angst out on crawfish farmers because they perceive that the crawfish they buy are too expensive should look closely at those they buy their crawfish from. The middle men and retailers mark up every pound that goes through their hands and make the same profit whether crawfish is selling at $1/lb or $5/lb. Farmers do not have that luxury and have far more expenses to cut into profit than any other part of the supply chain.

Anybody who has a lick of sense can look at SWLA92's numbers as an example and see that this year will be a trying season and may bring some crawfish operations into the red.

Let's break down his numbers so people understand.

Last season:
20,000 lbs (average) x $3.00=$60,000 (it was much more than this because price started dropping from $5.00 last season just before Christmas and overall/early catch poundage was higher than average.)

This season:
3,000 lbs x $8.00=$24,000 (it's much less than this amount because price slowly rose and only as of this week got to $8.00/lb.)

$60k-$24k=$36k less revenue this season so far.

Even though those numbers are both off a good bit in opposite directions, it still represents a 60% decrease in revenue for SWLA92's operation year over year at this point in the season. It's probably more like a 70-75% decrease if we get the true price averages calculated into the equations. Moreso we are not even taking into consideration the record amount of expenses pumping to flood up with inflated fuel and electricity costs due to the historically dry conditions. And even more profit reductions if you factor rising bait prices, labor costs, equipment repair and other necessary expenses that no consumers ever care to consider.

But yes, by all means frick the greedy crawfish farmers. They who provide the vast majority of the annual harvest and provide a commodity that actually keeps the price lower than if only wild caught crawfish were available on the market. I don't know how people cannot grasp the concepts of simple economics and understand that they would not be able to afford crawfish or even have much to eat if not for the aquaculture industry in this state.

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Your bait supplier also buys your crawfish from you? Sounds kinda weird I guess

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Not weird at all. Many buyers in my area sell bait as a way to increase their cashflow and profit margins.

They already have big refrigeration units to keep live crawfish and freezers for bait. They operate like crawfish middle men and buy bait at a price, mark it up and sell it to their fishermen at a mark up. They make just as good of margin selling bait as they do crawfish at the farmer's expense. But unless you're in the industry and have to pay bait costs to operate, nobody gives a shite about it.

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Gonna be a fried shrimp kind of Lent then. frick those crawfish farmers.

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Shrimp is dirt cheap.

I found a local store selling the Wild Caught Gulf shrimp for 2.50 a bag for 150 and up.

I know small shrimp, but it good for a gumbo or spaghetti.

I know it’s bad.

As much as I am from Cajun country, I hated to peel shrimp at least these are peeled.

I was talking to a farmer in Oberlin and he said the government is now making them pay their Mexican help $14.50 an hour. This is an increase from last year. After crawfish season, the Mexicans go back to Mexico as rich as Escobar.

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they respond, FOOD STAMPS.

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EBT stackkked.

Taxpayers frickkked.

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Perfect summation

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News flash crawfish is a very weather dependent commodity. We can’t make crawfish plentiful if they don’t survive the weather. Just educate y'all selves before spewing non facts

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Sadly he’s right about food stamps. In a normal year when crawfish are plentiful sales decrease towards the end of the year and pick up at the beginning of the month. The only logic behind that is peoples food stamps for the month run low.