As we enter the Lenten season, seafood suppliers warned of higher costs, but as those price tags soar, local crawfish farmers claim their profit is at an all-time low.

“Everything has been rising, and our prices that we are receiving are dropping as the farmer,” rice and crawfish, John Carbalan said.

A rice and crawfish farmer of 23 years, John Carbalan said the prices of fertilizer, gas, labor, and everything it takes to stay in the crawfish business, have drastically increased. Even the thousands of gallons of water it takes to man the crawfish ponds cost more.

“Fuel prices, fertilizer prices, all of the inputs are up, labor is up,” Carbalan said. “All of our products that we use to be able to get the product to the customer, like for example, the sacks that we buy, everything is up.”

Carbalan says the price of crawfish does not reflect inflation on their end. He says they are just breaking even.

“I understand that they have to move them, but they are also saying to the public that the price of seafood higher, and thus the price is going to be higher to the consumer,” Carbalan said. “But, we are getting less for our crop, so how are we supposed to pay our inputs back.”

Despite being early into the season, Carbalan explains the season starts even earlier for farmers, and the low volumes they are producing are discouraging.

”Do you pull the plus and stop where you are at and don’t go any further, or do you wait it out. Maybe the weather is going to change, the crawfish are going to start coming in, we’ll catch more, but it hasn’t happened yet this year. All that is happening, expenses are there and very high and the price is wanting to go down,”

Written By: Jade Moreau for KPLC Lake Charles, Louisiana