(KLFY) — Congressman Clay Higgins (R-La) recently announced the United States Department of Agriculture will be assisting crawfish farmers throughout the state following the recent droughts impact on their season with help going to the farmers. Deep water crawfishers are left without any help after their seasons were negatively impacted as well.

“Every time there’s any kind of disaster, anything, you know, they leave us out of the loop. We’re not allowed to have anything. I don’t know why, because we are the crawfish industry,” Ben Bienvenu, vice president of the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association, said.

The drought caused major issues in the Louisiana agriculture industry, specifically crawfish. Crawfish farming takes up a large percentage of the industry, but St. Martin Parish President Pete Delcambre said it does not change the fact that many crawfishers are being left out.

“You’re leaving out 25% of hard-working American citizens that pay taxes,” Delcambre said.

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In March, Congressman Higgins announced a small business administration declaration for people to apply for if they need assistance following the drought. Bienvenu said it does not equal to the help farmers received.

“How can you pay back that loan if you can’t make the money to pay the loan by not catching your crawfish? You know?” Bienvenu said.

“Just because it’s available, not only is it is it not the same course that the ponds had to take, but they also got direct funding of disaster. It is very tedious and only small percentages are able to use this function,” Delcambre said.

Both Delcambre and Bienvenu are looking for equal representation for everyone in the industry as farmers and fishers were both impacted the same.

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