BATON ROUGE — Crawfish farmers affected by last year's extreme heat and drought will be receiving emergency assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Congressmen Garret Graves (R-Baton Rouge) and Troy Carter (D-New Orleans) announced Friday.

Graves and Carter led a formal request to the USDA and the Small Business Administration for assistance in February. Their request laid out the authority that Congress had already granted through the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees and Farm-raised Fish statute. Gov. Jeff Landry also requested support for crawfish farmers in March.

The letter asked the Secretary of Agriculture to provide relief to Louisiana farmers who suffered significant crop losses in 2023 due to adverse weather. 

The excessive drought in 2023 affected all parishes where commercial crawfish are grown and harvested. Additionally, all parishes experienced over 40 days of temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, a statement from Carter read. In the last 39 years, there were less than 40 days of 100-degree temperatures.