Labor issue pinches crawfish industry

Mudbug madness may be madder than usual this season as a cap on the number of alien seasonal workers has resulted in fewer people to peel crawfish at the height of the season, limiting the number of peeled and packaged crawfish for sale.
“The federal government has capped the number of seasonal workers,” said Dexter Guillory, manager of Riceland Crawfish. “The federal government used to not count returning workers, but they are counting them now.”
“Processors need that seasonal labor, but they are not getting it. The federal government capped the number and now there are fewer people to peel crawfish.”  
Under the H-2B non-agricultural temporary worker program, there is now a cap on the total number of aliens who may receive visas to fill temporary non-agricultural jobs. The cap is 66,000 alien non-agricultural temporary workers per fiscal year. The country is allowed 33,000 of these workers for the first half of the fiscal year Oct. 1 to March 31, and 33,000 beginning the second half of the fiscal year, April 1 to Sept. 30. The cap for the first half of the fiscal year was reached on Jan. 26, right when crawfish season was just gearing up, and the second allocation will not go into effect until the beginning of the busiest week of crawfish season. 
“Allowing bureaucrats in Washington to determine the fate of an important Louisiana industry like the Gulf seafood processors is unacceptable,” said U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany in a news release. “This arbitrary decision by the Department of Labor is hurting this industry and threatening permanent closures of processing facilities. I’ll continue pressing this agency to come to reality and reverse this decision.”
While Guillory has local labor to help with peeling, there are not enough people seeking work as processors to comprise a sufficient work force, and Riceland Crawfish’s manager predicts he will be selling more live crawfish due to the shortage of peelers.
“I see us selling more live crawfish, but of a lesser quality, smaller crawfish,” he said. “That will lead to less money because no one wants small crawfish.” 
“Peeling is really the issue. Its taking away from our bottom line.” 
Riceland Crawfish buys crawfish from bout 50 docks and fishers, and most of their intake is then sold as wholesale. The company’s crawfish products are sold nationwide at Wal-Mart and at local seafood markets and distributed nationwide by Sysco Foods. 
“We sell tail meat and packaged boiled crawfish at Walmart,” Guillory said. “There is a high demand for both products.”  
Guillory foresees crawfish farmers bearing the brunt of the labor shortage when they try to sell their catches to processors who don’t have the workforce to peel the crawfish. 
“Farmers won’t be able to market 25 percent of their product,” he said. “I could see it depressing the price of crawfish to farmers. They may struggle with markets to sell to.”
“It could drive the price of meat up, too.” 
Despite the labor issue, Guillory expects this year’s crawfish catch to be good.
“It looks like it will be a good harvest,” he said. “That’s the Catch 22. There’s a very good crop in there.”
“Weather is effecting price right now, but that is getting ready to change. Quality of crawfish will be best in mid March to April, and prices will be lowest the week after Easter. Easter is our busiest week.” 
While optimum weather for a hearty harvest is what farmers are waiting on now, Mark Shirley, area agent for the LSU Ag Center’s Abbeville office, said that weather last fall and summer was also ideal for setting the bar for this season’s harvest.
“The harvest is set,” Shirley said. “It will be what it will be. The amount of crawfish produced this season depends on what conditions are like during the previous summer and fall. Events in July, August and September can impact crawfish harvest six months later. There are lots of variables at play.” 
“Conditions were good last summer,” Shirley continued. “We had a successful burrow at the end of last season and rain. There was good survival of brood stock in burrows, and there is a good crop of young crawfish.” 
“All that is needed now are warmer temperatures because cold weather equals slow growth.” 
Shirley’s specializations are aquaculture and coastal and natural resources, and like Guillory, the agent  predicts quality crawfish are just around the corner. 
“With the weather, the supply is erratic,” he said. “It will probably remain that way for few more weeks until we get into a more consistent spring weather pattern.” 
“We are not too far off production-wise from where we were last year. Last year, we had cooler weather in March and April, and that made the catch later.”
The agent predicted that one more molt by the young crawfish will have tables teeming with mudbugs of preferred size. According to Shirley, a well-managed pond can produce somewhere between 800 to 1,000 pounds of crawfish per acre.
“Typically about a third of the crawfish harvest is in December, January and February, and the other two-thirds is in March, April and May,” he said. “The water temperature is going up, and water helps growth and makes crawfish more active.” 
According to the 2013 Louisiana Summary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the top five crawfish producing parishes were Acadia with 31.5 million pounds; Evangeline Parish with 10.7 million pounds; Vermillion Parish with 10.3 million pounds; St. Landry with 10.2 million pounds; and Jefferson Davis with 9.3  million pounds. Louisiana has about 180,000 acres in crawfish pond production, and last year, about 102 million pounds of crawfish were caught in ponds. Wild caught crawfish, mostly from the Atchafalaya Basin, totaled about 6.5 million pounds.
As processors struggle to find peeling labor, Shirley predicts that Chinese crawfish meat will fill the empty space left by the state’s short supply.
“Without peeling labor, this will have a pretty bad impact on the industry,” he said. “Chinese meat will now have a bigger share of the market at cheaper prices, and thats not good either.”
Shirley hopes that long term answer to the tedious task of peeling crawfish is just around the corner.
“The University of Louisiana received a grant to build a peeling machine,” he said. “Right now, there is  still some hand labor required. The machine is not to the point of an empty tail on one side and meat on the other. The research to develop this machine is long overdue.”