Louisiana is the Bellwether of U.S. Shrimping: A Conversation with Acy Cooper

Shrimp is the most consumed seafood in the U.S. Annually Americans consume on average per person almost six pounds of shrimp. Today imports not only account for 90% of the shrimp we consume, but also have gravely impacted our domestic shrimping industry. Although a leading provider of high-quality shrimp in the U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico’s center of gravity for shrimp culture, Louisiana has experienced such an extraordinary decline that its shrimping community is facing an existential crisis. 

In this episode, we hear from Acy Cooper, President of the Louisiana Shrimp Association and a third-generation commercial shrimper from Venice, Louisiana. A well-known voice in the Gulf shrimping community, Acy brings frontline experience to his role as president, championing policy changes to level the playing field for U.S. shrimpers amid global competition and advocating for sustainable futures for coastal families and businesses. 

The Louisiana Shrimp Association is dedicated to protecting and promoting the state’s wild-caught shrimp industry, advocating for domestic shrimpers on local, state, and federal levels, and working to preserve the cultural and economic heritage of Louisiana’s seafood community. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Louisiana shrimping is far more than a commodity business. It is a generational livelihood, a coastal economic engine, and a defining thread in the state's cultural fabric. The industry supports thousands of commercial shrimpers, sustains tens of thousands of related jobs across processing, distribution, equipment, fuel, and ports, and contributes hundreds of millions of dollars annually to Louisiana's economy. Yet today, this historic industry finds itself under extraordinary pressure. What happens when a place-based industry collides with modern policy and market realities? Welcome to Brungart Law's Lang Act, where we provide a little extra perspective through conversations with individuals from across the spectrum of society. I'm Maurice Brungart, your host. I enjoy engaging with experienced, knowledgeable, and passionate people for the opportunity it affords to enrich our own understanding of the world through their eyes. The more we learn, the more likely we can become better versions of ourselves, guide others towards the same, and perhaps have a little fun along the way. Today's guest is AC Cooper, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association. He is a third-generation commercial shrimper from Venice, Louisiana, with more than five decades on the water. A well-known voice in the Gulf shrimping community, Cooper brings frontline experience to his role as president, championing policy changes to level the playing field for U.S. shrimpers amid global competition and advocating for sustainable futures for coastal families and businesses. The Louisiana Shrimp Association is dedicated to protecting and promoting the state's wild-caught shrimp industry, advocating for domestic shrimpers on local, state, and federal levels, and working to preserve the cultural and economic heritage of Louisiana's seafood community. Welcome to the program, AC.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Well, why don't you share with the audience uh a little bit about what a daily life is for a commercial shrimper? How do you start your day?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

You know, we uh most of the time we fish at night and we just get up around five o'clock in the evening and get ready and go out. We start working, we work all night long. Sometimes we come in nine, ten o'clock in the morning, and you know, we get fuel and ice, get our stuff back together, unload what what we had the day before, and get get what we need to go back out, and then we start to do it all over again. It's just it's a continuous, really it's it's all basically uh a routine that we we get into to do it. And you know, we got different layers of boats that some boats get few and go out and stay out for uh two, three weeks and two weeks. Uh I have a couple boats that we go day to day, so it's it's it's really it's really hecky hex to get one at some points because it's a continuous, continuous thing that we just keep doing.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

And for the audience's benefit, uh it's a seasonal operation. And we were just briefly talking before we got started about the two main seasons. If you could share with the audience what those seasons are.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

We have a brown shrimp season, which we call Brazilians. Um it starts in May, early May, and it runs through uh June, July. The end uh July 1st to 2nd, it usually closes. And there's a transition from a brown shrimp to a white shrimp between there in May and August season. August usually opens to be used to be uh the third Monday in August, but we had changed some some laws to where if the shrimp are big enough to catch earlier, we can do that by August.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah, I can hear you now.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yeah, that's the problem. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

No problem.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Um but but um yeah, it starts in in in early August and it runs through the end of December. So And that's the white shrimp season, right? Correct. Brown shrimp and white shrimp does not mix. So, you know, it has to allow enough time for the brown shrimp to move off. When the white shrimp starts showing up, then the brown shrimp leave. And then that's the point that it changes over from brown to white. In August it starts and it goes into blue.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

And at least and for Louisiana, it's the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries that gives the green light to all y'all to get out there and start fishing, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Correct. Yeah, the biologists go out there. The law is that um 50% of them has to be 80 hurns or greater before it can open. So that's a trigger point.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Okay. And you particularly, on average, what's your crew size?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Um, I use one, me and one other guy. Um, my myself, some of them use two to three hands. It all depends on a vessel and and how big it is and and what it does. You know, we have auto trawls and we have skimmers, so we're just two different means of catching methods.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

So generally uh shrimp trawlers are are just a handful of individuals at the most. Would that be fair to say?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Correct. Yep, there's a handful.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

All right, and um obviously this this is sort of a generational type uh business. Uh let the audience know how how far back this goes in your own family.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

It goes back three generations shrimping. Um, my father, my father's father, and my gr grandfather, great-grandfather, my father's father, and his father was fishermen. So it goes it goes back a long way in my family. We just, you know, it's something that's just dropped down through generations. And, you know, once you get it in your blood and you're raised doing it, this is what you want to do. Um, there's no other no other w outlet that we can take but go fishing because that's what we taught.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah, that's what you learned and developed uh a flavor for, so to say, a taste for it.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Oh yes, once you once you start doing it, you know, there's there's no turning back. You know, you you love the you love the water, you love the uh the outdoors, and it is just it's instilled in you to where that's what you do.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Uh what has remained the same uh over over time? Uh I mean the methods, the the the logistics, the the boats themselves, uh has that changed that much?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Um, yeah, the boats change a good bit. Um the methods change for sure. You know, used to be just well back in the day it was cast nets and and little trawls and then out of trawls, what uh they they call it. And then there was there was dragging, trawling with the skips, the feet skips. And then we come up with this design, uh the skimmers, we call it skimmers, which had night rigs where you shove a square frame and the buyers and caught shrimp, and then you had the trawls that you drag the bottom in the base. And then we come up with the method we call skimmers, which is uh a fixed frame on your boat with a heavy weight on the inside that drops down and follows the bottom, and then there's a tickle chain. It's like a sweep when the tickle chain drags the bottom, and the shrimp jumps up, and the net comes behind it and catch it. So it has changed uh considerably over the years.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Okay. Um, and you mentioned that you go out in the evening. Uh, how long does it take before you can actually drop your nuts and start trolling?

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Well, we live here in Venison maybe 20, 30 minutes, some places, depending on where you're going and the wind and the tide or where you have to work at. But um if you want to work close to the house, you can. Probably 20, 30 minutes, you can be there. But there's some places you run an hour, some places you'll run an hour and a half, two hours. It all depends on where the shrimp's at. Sometimes you have to move around in order to find the most of the shrimp, the majority of them that you want to catch. Because you have to look for a little bigger shrimp nowadays, and the small shrimp is made feasible.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

And from what I understand, when you get out in the water, the the way it's uh run in Louisiana, you have your inner waters, the outer waters, and then the federal waters, correct?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Correct. You have inshore waters, you have um the three miles from shoreline to three miles of state water, and then from three miles out is federal waters, correct.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Okay. Um and what what does it take to run a trawler? I mean, what do trawlers run run for uh in terms of cost?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Well, they're pretty expensive. You know, uh I used to pay back in the 70s. You know, I started when I was 15, um, 65 years old. So I was 75. The first diesel motor I bought was around eight, ten thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Today, that same diesel engine costs me fifty thousand dollars. So it it it it's really it's really getting harder to sustain our way of life with the increase and the way things are going with the prices of the shrimp. If the price of shrimp would have would have went went up with inflation, would have been okay, but it never did, it just went backwards.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, uh I've noticed I I've noticed over the years uh the the volume of shrimp that's being caught, and please correct me anytime I I misspeak, uh you know, it it increases, but the price has actually dropped in terms of revenue.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Correct. Yeah, we and Louisiana catches around 100 to 120 million, depending on the price. You know, uh some prior time the price is up a little bit, we catch about 120 million pounds. Um, average years around 100 million. So there's no problem with the species, you know. We have we have good management, and uh it the the speed the shrimp are there, it's not that they're not there.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

And how did you end up becoming president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Well, we started an organization back in '89 called Delta Commercial Fisheries, and that was whenever they started taking the net, the net bands come along and started trying to take our nets away from us, promote his fishing. And then as it went on, I was president of the Delta, and a guy named AJ Feb had come down here. I think it was around 2001 or 2002, 2001. And he was trying to get everybody together to get, you know, this uh to get something from Washington because we had a bad year that year and try to get us some help. And I told him who I was, and we talked a little while, and then a little while later, he comes back about two, three weeks later, he calls me up and says, Look, I want to start organization. I I think I want you on the board. And I said, I don't know about that, but I'll I'll give it a shot. You know, I try to try and see what it looks like. If if I think I like it and it thinks it's gonna be go somewhere, then I'd be involved. And then it went to two other presidents before me, and then if it just so happened, the last president resigned, and I was vice president for all these years from 2002 to when I took over. And then I I just pretty much stepped up in a row and started doing it myself. Well, I have a board though, you know, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

So about about how many how many members do you have?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Um at one point we had over a thousand, but you know, as as the years went on, we started losing them because we're losing fish fishermen. So we probably have around 300 at this day, at this day in time, which is good compared to what we you know, the fishermen we have, you know. Fishermen are hard to represent, man, because we all independent, we all have our own thoughts, you know, and when things don't go your way, they they kind of look at you like nothing's happening. So it's a it's a hard industry to represent because we're so independent.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Well, on that note, you know, if someone is thinking of shrimping as just another industry, uh, what are they missing?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Oh man, you're missing a lot. You know, you're missing the outdoors. You know, we watch the sunrise, we watch the sunset every day, we see the porpoises, you know, there's things that we see that a normal person never sees, you know, and that's that's what excuse me, that's what really gets you, you know, you're the outdoors and you're free, you know. You you do you work like you want, but you have to work, you know? Um but I see a lot of things that normal people don't see. You know, and I watch the times change over the years, and but but it's it's just nothing like being on outdoors and and doing what you love.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Would it be fair to say that uh since you're out there on the Barataria Bay, uh you've actually been a witness to the coastal erosion of Louisiana?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Oh yes. I will watch it come and I watch I I just I I sit there and think sometimes what my father's seen and what I've seen disappear. It's it's amazing how Louisiana just talked about coastal erosion and restoration and never really did anything about it. You know, it's it's just it just amazed me.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

As we briefly speak about coastal erosion, and I don't want to get sidetracked, uh, but we're just finished the Christmas season. And I remember uh as a kid and teenager when they started the uh program of sending the trees, the Christmas trees, down south to help uh try to shore up the wetlands. You have probably seen this actually happen in the field. Has that actually helped?

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Not to a certain degree. Um, you know, weather, wave action, it pretty takes a toll on it. Uh it I don't see where it really helped a lot. But some areas it it probably did us enclosed that, you know, that's not exposed to the to the to the weather, to the to the wave action and the the high tides, you know, it it probably did help. Areas that I seen never really helped a whole lot. But some areas, yes, I I can I can say, yeah, it did help.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Um what's a break-even, returning back to the conversation about shrimping and uh the fact that uh it's got more costly as as a business. Uh, what is a break-even shrimp price uh for folks in your in your line of work?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Wait, and you know, it's hard to say. Um the prices we've been getting, we never would have survived if it wouldn't be for the amount of shrimp that we catch. The only thing helping us is that the volume is there. Um, you know, in the 80s I got a dollar a pound for no matter what I brought in. I got four dollars a pound for for the biggest I brought in. Today, I can go back two years ago, last year, at one point we was getting 40 cents, 30 cents, 50 cents for the smaller ones, and maybe yeah, I seem to go down to 90 cents for the biggest ones. You know, that's that's that's without catching a volume, you couldn't make. So it would have to be, if I just go back to where I was in the 80s, I think it'd be sustainable for me to make a living with because of the volume I'm catching now, because of the boat loss. But it'd have to be to a point where it's high enough to where I can go. Uh a dollar a pound for the smallest one would be a break-even. Uh and maybe make a few dollars if the if the volume is not there.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

And and how was the last season uh for you?

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Well, the last season was pretty good. You know, we we caught the shrimp and the the price wasn't great. We got around 80 cents, 70 cents for the smaller ones, um$2.50 for the big ones. The volume was there. We we we made a few dollars this season here, but but we have to understand that you know I gotta make enough money to where I can live through the winter because we have nothing else to do now.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

So it it has to be a point to where I can save enough and overcome all the breakdowns because it's like anything else. If you drive a car all the time and you and that's what you do, you know, you're gonna have breakdowns. If you work with equipment all the time, you're gonna have breakdowns, you're gonna have problems. So you have to overcome that. So it has to be to a point where I can save money to restore my vessel when something breaks down. So it has it has to be a point to where uh a dollar a pound for the smaller shrimp would be a good a good starting point. And three dollars a pound for my big shrimp.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Would it would it be fair to say basically you have to work longer, work more, uh, because the price has gone down per pound?

SPEAKER_01 17:25

I'm working harder now than I ever worked in my life just to sustain my way of life. Um you know, I'm 65 years old. I should be slowing down, and I'm not. I can't afford to. You know, I used to save money. This day and time you save money and you you spend it through the to live through the winter. So, you know, you have you have to put in a lot of hours and you have to make as many days as possible. You know, we all everybody's working hard.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Do you so would it be fair to say, from what you can recall, you're working harder than when your father was a shrimper?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Oh yes, no doubt. No doubt. There's I didn't have to work near as hard and made more money in the 80s than I do now. And and you can just look at the times how much inflation went up in the way things are today, um, just by looking at the groceries and your light bills and your fuel bill. You know, I paid 25 cents about 25, 30 cents for a decent one if I started. Paying$4, I got the point I was paying$4 a gallon. You know, at 50 cents a pound, at$4 a gallon, I gotta catch over a thousand pounds just to get even.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

How many trips do you typically have to make? Uh like this last season, going out and coming back.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

I work daily, and you try to get as many as you possibly can. If I can get if I can get four and a half, five months out of a six-month period, then I did good. A lot of times breakdown holds you back less than that. You might get four months out of it. You know, it all depends on what happens to you and what what goes wrong.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

What are some of the greatest risks when you're out there on the water? I mean, I can imagine, but I I want to ask the person who knows.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And let me tell you, we got we got debris out there, it's unbelievable. You know, we have remnants of all fields that's that's out there with pylons and old wells and um rocks that's under the water. You know, there's there's a lot of things that could happen. You know, I sunk a couple boats myself. Um, you can lose your life, there's no two ways about it. We have fishermen losing lives, you know, uh pretty regularly. Not all the time, you know, but we do have them gone. You know, I know a few of them that perished because of of what we do. And um, we have my second vice president and this boat caught on fire two years ago, which is George Barriss. Thank God somebody come saved him and the wind was blowing the right way that we can get to the back of the boat before they sunk. You know, and if not, they'd be in the water. So it, you know, it's a dangerous job. There's no two ways about it. You know, you take a risk every time you leave, you know, you get your way by and just hope you make it back in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Well, I think uh from what I understand, the fishing industry in the United States, uh, it's it's number two in terms of dangerous industry to the workers involved comes after logging. Uh and shrimping, obviously, I'm sure sees its fair share of uh accidents ending in life and serious injury. It's my understanding, uh a big thing that happens is getting caught in the winches, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Correct, yes. Yeah, I have uh my friend's uncle, I knew him my whole life, and one of the guys I watched growing up. Um Slicker suit, he reached over to grab a winch to pick up the tail, and Slicker Coop got Slicker Suit got caught in it and he couldn't tear and just sucked him in. The boat was still going and he was wrapped up in the winch and he was by himself. You know, that that's that's starting to be a big thing. Because, you know, if I don't catch enough shrimp to sustain a good guy, you know, sometimes you have to get good people to work with you. And and back in the day I could do that. If I had to get a guy that has a wife and family that he has to support his family in order to have a good deck end, if I can't make enough money to get a deckhand to where I can sustain his way of life and mine, then I'm picking people off the street to go to work, or I'm going by myself. And that that's that's risky business when you go by yourself. You know, anything could happen. You can slip off the boat and the boat goes by itself and you're left behind. So I'll get caught up in the winch and there's nobody to shut it off. So that that's another factor that comes into when I can't make enough money to do that, to pay somebody to stay with me and work with me. And look, you got to have some good people to work with you because this is not easy. Job, you know, it's physical. Um, it's very physical. You gotta have help.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

From from what I've discovered, um that and you had uh alluded to it, uh, there's also a problem with uh some of the abandoned uh gas and oil platforms, not the ones we traditionally think of. They're they're like smaller um structures, and they used to be where there was land, but with coastal erosion, now they're submerged or partially submerged. And I think I saw an article not too long ago in the Times Picky Yoon, uh, the electronic version, about a shrimp trawler precisely running into one of these, and the guy lost his boat. Uh how how frequent is that?

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Um, it's pretty regular. I hit one in '87. I had to hit one and total bottle of brain was skip. I just put it together. Um, a building in '83. In '87 I hit it. And uh thank God I had somebody that heard about they heard it, uh, they thought it was an explosion. And uh they seen the lights when uh went down and they come over there and pick this up. But yeah, we we have pylons under the water because you know, go through the bottom of the boat. We have wells all over, which used to be on bank. And you know the erosion just exposed a lot of things that's there that and we work around them. You know, you know, we we tend to learn what we can see, we we remember and mark with GPSs and all now. You know, we can we can mark them on our GPSs and all, but the ones you don't know about and the ones you can't see, you know, they that's the ones you have to worry about. But they're they there, they all over.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

What about insurance? Uh or the I mean, is that something that's expensive or or what?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

90% of the fishermen can't afford insurance. You know, you you're on your own. Unless, you know, the the all companies that happen to be in business and liable for it, but most of the time they find you just as just as liable as the all field. So if you lost$100,000 and they find both of you at fault, then you know, you're not gonna get what you're gonna put it back together, you're not gonna get enough money out of your belt. There's a lot of things, a lot of play, a lot of things coming to plate right there.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

And I take it's the same also because uh a lot of y'all are independent. Uh the same thing is for health insurance. You you gotta fund your own uh health insurance, correct?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Correct, yeah. You you know, every everything uh and that and that's a big problem. You know, you you have to fund your insurance. Um we don't have 401k, we don't have we don't have money put up to for when you get old. I'm 65 years old, and I'm still working as hard as I did back in the day. You know, I had a little sickness. I had a little money saved. Um, I had got sick and I was out for about a year, year and a half. I didn't think I was gonna make it, but God's good, you know. He he brought me back, and and what I did have saved, I had to use. So now I'm working as hard and now, like I said, as I was before. We don't have retirement, we don't have 401k, you know, and all the money we make is is spent through the wintertime for us to live through the wintertime. So we got to put up a little nest in order to get your vessel back right again for May season because every May season we pick up our boats, we try to get everything back to par to where nobody gets hurt and a pulley break or something, faulty equipment on the vessel to where anybody gets hurt. You know, we have we have to do the maintenance and and get back going again. So we don't have nothing to fall back on. Majority of fishermen has nothing but what they they working with.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Talking some numbers here. So uh there's about 15,000 jobs in Louisiana that are directly or indirectly tied to shrimping. And we're talking about a$1.3 billion annual economic impact across harvesting docks, processors, fuel, etc. Does that sound about right?

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Yes, it was down, it used to be at$2.4 billion, but now we're down to$1.3 billion. You're correct.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Okay. And is it also correct that over the last 25 years it's gone from in Louisiana alone, because there are shrimpers in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, that in Louisiana it's gone from about$11,000 shrimping vessels to about 1,500?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Right. And that goes to show you what's happening to the industry, is is why we're fighting so hard now. These uh the imports and the structure that the federal government is allowing to happen. And the World Bank, we're fighting the World Bank for lending these guys money, you know. That's you know, at 1500 licens, you know, we're not far away from kissing this industry vibe because it's not gonna take long if they don't make money for more good more people just to drop out. Everybody's sitting on the edge of the fence and don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Well, talking about uh that, and you know, you mentioned the World Bank. So about 90% of the shrimp that's consumed in the United States is imported shrimp, right? That correct. Okay. And then the remaining shrimp, that's obviously, you know, the wild-caught shrimp here in the states and Louisiana contributes three and a half percent, roughly. Uh so I mean that's a significant amount for the amount of shrimp that's consumed here in our country. So I mean, I can conjecture, but again, I'm I'm asking you, uh what why is it 90% of the shrimp that we're consuming here is imported? If you if we have so much volume in the Gulf.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

You just said that you just said the numbers, and we probably had 20,000 licensed in 2000. So when these countries start dumping shrimp into their country, they're looking for market shares. And once they gain market shares by low prices, then that's what happens with, you know, when they overtake you. It's like a strategic. They know, they knew when they started, when they started farming raising the shrimp and they started bringing them in here, India, Indonesia, Thailand, they all started fighting their cell phone dropping prices. And as they dropped prices and and dumping in here, they drove our prices down with deals. Because restaurants, uh the Cisco's in the world, they all start buying from them, and they all start using these cheap shrimp, thinking that they're gonna save a dollar. But they don't realize what they're doing to the people in this country when they do things like it's me today, and it may be you tomorrow, whoever's listening, of what's happening here. Once they gain market shares, they drive up our prices down, then it's not sustainable for me to go to work anymore. And that's why you see the boats go from X amount to where we're at today, because they drove us out. We used to be 100% of the market before these these porn-raised shrimp started coming on uh onto the market. You know, we had we have eight states that does it North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. You know, we we we was the one providing shrimp to the country. But once they did that, they drove, it's not, and it's not only Louisiana having this problem. I have an organization that called USSC is United States Shrimp Coalition, and it consists of all the states. We talk, we all together. We just did anti-dumping. Um we are having the same exact problems that Louisiana's having because of market share.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Well, what do you say to folks uh you know that well, the shrimpers overseas, they're just like you. They're trying to make a living. Well, what what is it that they're missing uh that they they're not seeing that puts this in in a more illuminating context, so to say?

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Well, well, it's not on it's not mostly it's not shrimpers. It's it's porn raised shrimp. Um farm raised, right? Farm raised, correct. And and when you start thinking farm raise, you know, you have just like the homes, you know, to put pest asides, they have to do all this. They're using antibiotics, they're using steroids, antibiotics to keep the shrimp healthy because they're keeping them in a confined area and there's so many in them. They have to use stuff to kill allergy, they give them steroids and make them grow fast. Um, people don't realize what they're eating when they eat farm rays. No, we've been bringing up the health issues about these farm rays for 15 years because, you know, by 2050, the World Health Center, the CCC, says that more people's gonna die from antibiotics resistance than cancer. Now, it's heavily indie shrimp. We've done proved it. Here in Louisiana, LSU did a study. I think it was 80% of them come back with banned antibiotics that's banned in the US. Right in Baton Roots at random stores. So, do do do you want to feed your family? And look, that's something that we have to do. We have to start targeting the mothers of the state in order to educate them. And I've been telling people this for years, education is gonna be the key for people to realize it's not only helping us, and it's not only, you know, it I I advocate because I want better prices and I want to keep the industry living, keep you surviving because it's generational. But you have to realize when you when a mother goes buy a shrimp out of a grocery store and you're looking at one maybe a dollar more than the other one, realize why you're paying that dollar more. Because it's so much better for you for your family than it would be buying this cheap shrimp that you don't even know where it came from. You know, India's one of the dirtiest worlds in the country, and and in the world. Dirtiest country in the world. So think about where that shrimp's coming from and what it took to get it in that bag and where it's coming from. And that's something that we we have to do is educate them.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Okay. So there are antibiotics in the farm-raised shrimp, in addition to uh whatever else they're doing to treat the water, uh, the steroids you had mentioned. Uh, but considering 90% of the shrimp we're consuming in the States is precisely that type of shrimp, have there been any documented incidents of folks having health conditions that can be tied to this as of this moment?

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Not saying that there's not, just and and look, that's one of the biggest issues because they never tied it together yet. But we know it's in there. We we know the testing's been there. And like you said, I I know a couple people that told me, and this is just me, one of my attorneys went to eat somewhere and knew it was a shrimp. She got sick, and and she knew where to come from because of that. But that that's one of the biggest problems we have, and it's trying to connect the dots. You know, it's it may not be right this moment, it may be over time. We don't know. But and you're right, look, I agree with you on that one. Okay. We just can't connect the dots. We we just need that when people gets goes out and eat and get and eat shrimp or seafood and happen to get sick, they need it, they need to report that. Because it hasn't been reported enough.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Now, uh something else that I I came across was uh, I mean, I'm I'm a firm believer in in free trade, right? You know, we got to compete against one another, uh, whether it's you know me against you or my neighbor across the state line or another country. Um however, you know, that always, you know, the devil's in the details like to say, but how free is the trade, right? You know, and has the game been stacked. Uh and in this particular case, a lot of these shrimp farms uh that the imported shrimp is coming from, we in some part actually funded those uh through other organizations or our own say uh uh interest in trying to help other countries stimulate and grow their own economies. But now those farms benefiting from the taxpayer dollars we invested are subsidizing those industries, and it's hurting folks like you. Is is that more or less correct?

SPEAKER_01 35:49

You're correct. You you you hit you hit the nail on the head. You know, like the third world countries, you know, you I and and look, and and you hit it on a good point right there. Our government wants to help the people of the of the countries, the people. But what winds up happening, if you go look at India, there's documents um showing one whistleblower that went over there, he got a job in one of them the shrimp farms. He's gonna pay$200,000 around the farm. He worked two months. He documented all that was going on. They're sleeping on the floors, they have no sheets on the bed, they got bed bugs, they living above it up there, up top of the plant. People trying to leave, they won't let them leave. So if you want to help the people, you help the people. But you're helping governments that don't even like you. And that's that's my biggest, that's my biggest pet peeve with that. Why would you give so much money to countries that's abusing their workers, slave labor, women labor, child labor? It's all document, it's all there. Why would we we don't allow it here? We don't condone it in them countries, but yet we fund it and let it happen. Why we don't stop that? Why we don't take a look at them and say, hey, I think they got paid like 50 cents a day. They had to pay 25, someone that worked outside of the plant had to pay 25 cents to drive to get to the place to work. So they're not making any money. So it's not helping the individual person or families in them countries, you helping governments, because it's all government ran. So the government's getting the money and not the people. You're not helping nobody but that government put that money in his pocket to hurt you that they don't even, they don't even think they don't even like you.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

So when you are an advocate for tariffs or shrimp quotas, uh import quotas, or both, it's not because you want to be protected from the competition, it's because you want to level the playing field because you're already operating under severe regulations, right?

unknown 38:10

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Uh I mean, I mean, uh, I uh I recall growing up when the the TEDs, uh, and you can explain that to the audiences, were first being implemented and mandated on on the industry. Uh, but I think a lot of people are totally unaware of those devices. Uh, why don't you share for the audience what that is?

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Well, TED is a totally excluded device. Um what it does, it goes. My my dad and my in my generation, my family always told you told me to fix the hose in my net because you lose shrimp out of it. Here, Ted is it's a round bar with four-inch bars, a round circle with four-inch bars in it. Um, we have to put a like a 42-inch slit on top of our net to when a turtle or something goes in and it hits that bar and it shoots them out. Well, it works in deeper water, but the lowest studies still show that Teds kill more turtles than the regular nets do. Um, you know, they're trying to implement it in intro waters, and I'm in fighting, my fifth district court right now. We're going up the chain. We we disputing it because we did a bycat study, because they kept saying that we we catch a hundred pounds of fish to two pounds of shrimp, and we want to dispute that. So we did our own bycatch study. I said on Louisiana Shrimp Task Force for the governor. We funded the task force, used the same people know we use us. Man, we come out beautiful. 500 and something hours, not one turtle. So we've been fighting this TED issue. And look, we want we we are some of the most conservationist people, been more than conservation people are, because we have to rely on this tomorrow, next year, 10 years from now, a generation to come. We don't want to kill anything that we're not gonna sell or eat. We want that to survive, but forcing us to put turtle spliters in our nets when we lose so much because we got these dialogue crab traps, old crab traps that sit on the bottom. We have logs, we have water lilies, we have all kinds of stuff that goes in our net and hits against that bar. And what happens is it's like putting a wall, and the shrimp don't go in the tail no more. We just you have to understand how the net's built. We have the front of the net, which we call the body, uh-huh. Then we have the throat where it goes down, then we have the tail where they will we pick it up at. Now, between the the throat and the tail is where the ted goes. Now, as the shrimp and all going back to hit this head before it gets into the tail, if there's pressure there and water pressure, it shoots it right out of the hole. So we wind up losing more than we we receive. Any any obstruction in that TED third excluder device, we lose the money. You know, it just it just it just it just throws everything out the net. We don't catch anything no more. In that side, if we catch something. One side would come up with five baskets, and the other side come up with a half a basket, which are maybe 400 pounds or 300 pounds or 200 pounds, whatever it may be, and the other side I have 25% of that.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Um speaking of uh the device and and and the shrimpers involved, uh the average age of a shrimper is 58 years old, right?

unknown 42:07

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

So I take it you're you're not getting any new shrimpers uh um that are gonna sustain this in the long run. Um is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 42:23

There's a couple different ways that I think that it could happen. It could happen if things change.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Okay. All right, we'll come back, we'll come back to that one in in a moment. Um so internally, Gulf shrimp labeling and consumer deception. You know, we got our own people in Louisiana who are saying, hey, come have some, you know, Gulf of Mexico shrimp. It ain't from the Gulf of Mexico, is it? No, no, indeed not.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

And no, we we we we uh uh the first restaurants is a is is a big, you know, 80% of our shrimp usually go through a restaurant level. Um we've been trying to put legislation in, and look, nobody wants the federal government or the state government in our business as less as possible. Government involvement can really be a bad thing. Or it can be a good thing, you depend on how you look at it and what it's about.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

So we we we tried to get um passed a reference labeling law. 20 years we've been trying to pass that labeling law. Never can get it done. We just use shrimp to put a reference to label where that shrimp comes from. If you use our culture and you're saying you're selling gold shrimp, you ought to be selling gulf shrimp. And not only that, the consumer. And needs to know where you need to know what you're eating. You have the right to know what you're eating. If you if you say you're gonna serve if you're serving golf shrimp, you need to do it. 20 years to try to pass that law legislation. In 2019, you've been working on that for 20 years? Yes. In 2019, it gave me 5% chance of passing it.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

And when you say they, are you referring to the state legislature? The industry. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

The processes, though all of them. So I'm gonna put the label law in again. Let's let's go for it. You know, if we got nothing else to lose, we're dying. This industry's dying. Um I didn't think out of the box. And the only way we got it to pass when I added crawfish. When I added crawfish in it, now you got Southeast Louisiana, Southwest Louisiana, you have North Louisiana, you have central Louisiana, and you have the coast. Now they're all looking at say, oh, wait, this may be a good thing. Because now I'm I'm you you're you're affecting my district down. So now you know we got not one no vote in the legislature because I added crawfish. If I just went with shrimp, then I just only had the coastal representative.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

So and look, we we didn't put no meat behind it because we've been trying to get this passed for such a long time. There's no meat put behind it. We just wanted them to label it. And then two years ago, uh Senator Connie, we well, let's go back a little bit. We had two boards set up a state, uh, um a House uh task force and a Senate task force put together. And we worked on issues and we brought it to them, and this the bill came out to where now we have fines behind it. Now they have to label it, they have to have a sign on it. Now there's meat behind it, there's fines, you're gonna you're gonna get fined and continue getting fined, you can be getting closures. So now we really have, and they're not all complying at this point in time, but we are working on it. They need to all comply because even here in our parish, I'm in Placement Parish, we just did testing at the restaurants. Some of them even fail in our own parish, but all the shrimp we have right here. Placement Parish catches 30 million pounds a year, and yet you're still selling their board of shrimp right here in our own parish when they got all these fishermen that you just go to and get all you want. So we we try to work on that issue to where the consumer needs to know and he has the right to know where your seafood comes from. Especially if you ask. If you ask, you ought to not be lied to.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

I agree. Um what do you say to the to the consumer that says, yeah, but you know, gulf shrimp might not have antibiotics, but they got all the pollutants that are in the Gulf. How would you respond to that?

SPEAKER_01 47:18

We are the most after Katrina and after the Hallsville, we are the most tested seafood in this world. We are tested more than any other shrimp. Look, they're only testing, it's in less than 2%. They say 2%, but it's less than 1% coming into the country. You know, um, food safety in this country ought to be number one. You've seen years ago what happened to the dog food by killing dogs. If they're gonna attack us, they don't have to attack us through a missile or warfare. We consume this country can't sustain its own way of life. It cannot do it. Your people is gonna starve. You're ran the farmers out, you're earning the fishermen out. Where are your food's gonna come from? Overseas. If we can't sustain our own way of life and they want to attack us, we're in trouble. We're in trouble. So this gonna, and look, the president's doing the right thing. Bring it home. Let's make America first. Make your beef beef farmers number one, make your your farmers number one, make your fishermen number one, make your get it to where you can sustain sustain your own people. If you have to rely on people to eat, you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Or or at least, you know, have some transparency in the market, right? You know, and I agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

You know, if if if and we whenever they tell them that you we don't want, and we do tell them, but we don't, it's your choice. If you ask and you have the right to know, and then they say, well, it's important shrimp, if you make a decision eat it, then so be it.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Yeah, well, and it could be some people they they might not be able to afford Gulf Coast shrimp. Uh, they could afford the cheaper shrimp. Um, but you know, again, this this is more a fundamental question. Is it a free market issue or is it a failure caused by uneven rules, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:22

It's a failure from uneven rules, I can tell you that now, because once they dump and get the price so low, and don't think, don't, don't ever think for one minute that once we go away, that cheap shrimp's gonna be cheap. Don't ever think that. Because once they got the market and they have the market shares, and we go on, and you want to eat shrimp, you're gonna pay whatever the price is gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Well, right now, the um the ones that would have the market share as a country, because then they have their individual businesses, it would be India, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Most of the imported shrimps coming from India, India and Indonesia, Indonesia is one of the top ones, and India's one of the top ones, correct. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Um, do you think? I mean, this is a bit of a rhetorical question, but if this were an energy or defense supply chain issue, this would be tolerated?

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Hell no. Okay, you know, this country look what's happening now. You know, they ain't no way. You know, that there's that there's no way that would be tolerated. And it shouldn't be tolerated here because it's food safety. You know, it's it shouldn't be. So even testing, you know, in you you the UK test is what it's testing around 5%. They went to Tempest because they found so much. They they as high as 50% of their testing in seafood. We less than 2%.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

And and by that, those percentages you mean a percentage of the the shrimp that's imported into Europe or imported into the states, right? 50 vites two percent.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Yes, 50% of the seafood uh that brought is brought into the country is being tested. Okay, so we less than two percent.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Now, are we testing less than two percent because we don't create enough positions for that?

SPEAKER_01 51:08

That's one of the issues, but and look, they test like 18 antibiotics and 18, and we test for like seven. You know, we're not even hitting the mark. We're not even hitting it. We're a long ways from it. Now, is there that and that may be the issue, though? We don't have enough enough workers to do the testing to get it to the point where we need to be. But that's the government's fault, you know. And and we all know how the government's been the last few years, and and and and it's all one-sided, you know. They're not worried about me and my job, and not worried about the farmers that's that's been out gone, that's been in generation, brought down through generations and had to sell land because they can't afford to run the equipment no more. They can't they can't pay for the equipment, they they can't, they can't have their land on what they want them selling. Big corporations come in and buy them up. Well, that's what's happening. They big corporations with these is killing, it's it's it's not only me, it could be you next. Yeah, I don't know who you know, whatever it may be. It could be you next. Yeah, it's me now, it could be you next.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Well, here's a question for you, AC. Do you also think you could be a victim of your own success? Let's say the tariffs start working, there are greater quotas, uh, you know, caps on the imports, so the price per pound goes up because again, you don't have the cheap shrimp flooding the market anymore. But do you run the risk then that you don't sell the shrimp because precisely it's more expensive?

SPEAKER_01 52:47

Well, um, and I agree with you on that point. You know, I've seen some fisheries to that point to where it's got repercussions, you know, it does it does have a negative effect. But like I said, if I if I can just get back to the 80s prices, and I'm not asking for the world. Yeah, you know, I I don't wanted to go, because if you do it if if four dollars a pound for my big shrimp was in the 80s and you and you you compound that to uh 2026 prices, that shrimp would be$15 a pound. I'm not looking for$15 a pound. You know, I'm looking for a reasonable price to where I can sustain my way of life, keep my my vessel moving, keep my family up fed, keep my keep and do the things I need to do and save a little bit of money. Because I don't work just to pay bills. You know, nobody does. You know, everybody wants to have a little nest to where I could I'm raising grand, like me, I'm raising grandbabies right now. So I started over at 65 years old. So I got I'm looking at schooling, I'm looking at baseball, I'm looking at not cheering, I'm I'm looking, and and and it takes money to do these things. So I'm not looking to get and look, now I don't know a rich fisherman anywhere, and none of us want to be rich. You know, we're God fearing people. We just want to live our lives and leave us alone. We don't want, I don't want to be president of the Louisiana Shrimp, and I don't want to have to do all this fighting. But if I don't do it, who's gonna do it? You know, who's gonna step up and say, and I want to watch my bank account go down because I do it. But the cause is more important than anything because Louisiana's, you know, it's it's a heritage that once you lose it and you don't have me to teach my kids, and for them to teach their kids, you lost it. It's not coming back, it will never come back. And I'm not saying Louisiana Shepherds will go away completely. They are gonna be the mom and pop shops here and there. You know, there's gonna be that. There's gonna be fresh shrimp, but uh to see it like I seen it when I was a kid, I'll never see that again. It'll never happen. And the only way it can happen is, and and I'm gonna tell you, this industry can grow back. It can come back because everybody that left this industry, they ready to come back. But it has to be money in it, it has to be to where they can come back and make a living with it again. You'll see the boat boat numbers go straight up.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Because they like me. You know, I don't want to do anything else. You force me to do it, I'm gonna do it. But with my with my heart lies in the industry, and theirs too. So they'll come back just as fast as they left.

SPEAKER_00 55:52

And speaking of the industry and the association, um as president of this association, and I I'm sure you employ that term very loosely. Uh it's probably more of a collaborative effort uh behind the door. Uh, but what's the hardest truth you've had to communicate to your own members?

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Um look good sometimes. You know, sometimes I have to I have to tell the truth and that I'm not God, I can't make things snap my finger and make it happen. That, you know, there may be it may not be a comeback. And that's that's something hard to swallow. And and all I can do is tell them that we're not gonna give up till it's over. That's one thing that we're not gonna do. Louisiana Shrimp's here to stay. I have 14 board members that's that's behind me. I can't just do what I want to do, you know. I have to listen to my board.

SPEAKER_00 56:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

And and the board tells me what to do, but they they they they give me enough slack to where I can do it. And but just to think that it may not ever come back again. You know, that that that is we may not survive this. You know, we we so far down now, as you mentioned earlier, you know, the age, the numbers, the numbers coming in when you bring 1.7 billion, two billion pounds in the country that only consumes 1.5 billion, where's your place at?

SPEAKER_00 57:36

True.

SPEAKER_01 57:38

Where's your place? You know, they it it if they only consume 1.5 billion and you bring in 1.7 billion, that's 200 million pounds sitting in coastal before you even go to work. So where do that leaves you at? You know, you you know, it's it's it's that's a hard pill to swallow.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

Now you have a son that's a shrimper as well, right? Yeah, I have two of them, correct. Two. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Um my son-in-law, they're all shrimpers. My son-in-law we ain't got a job, my son just we ain't got a job. I'm I'm liable to have to go to. You know, I I don't I don't know. I'm getting old, I got arthritis and broke my wrist, I got bad back. Um, I don't know what the future holds. I'll put in God's hand and hands and leave the path.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Where do you find government? Our own government, you know. State, federal has helped and where it's hurt.

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Well, our state government, you know, it took them a while to realize where we're at, you know. It took a good bit of convention. I've been screaming this for such a long time. Um, the last couple of years, they're really starting to realize that the state has a problem, you know, because if they don't realize what's happening here in the state, and you represent us, all your coastal communities are dying right before your eyes. And you can't even see what's happening. Because why would I want to live on the coast if I can't go to work triming? You know, that's what we do. All this most of these coastal communities across the coast is a fishing village. It's either off-field or fishing, or boat. Um, here in my area, you know, we used to be a lot of off-field, and it's gone. We're mostly recreational and commercial. So they starting to realize and giving us some support that we really need now. But I keep saying, is it too little or too late? Because I've been screaming this for 10, 15 years now, that it's gonna come to a point where we're gonna be flat on our face. Now, the federal government with Trump is starting to help us a little bit, you know, the tariffs he put on India. Because we had just did four countries, India is one of them. Um, look like it's gonna be around 50%, 52% of tariffs are gonna be on them, which that ought to ought to deter a lot of the shrimp because they're looking to go somewhere else with them now. Things about been seeing and reading. So uh Cassidy's got a bill in there because look, when we did the first anti-dumping back in 2002, the bird amendment was in effect. And the bird amendment was Senator Bird put an amendment to where when you sue these countries and the tariffs come in off these duties, that it would go back to the industry. And in 2002 we did it, we didn't get a check till 2007 on some of them. And then and by 2009, that went away because these these these uh these other countries started saying you can't subsidize the industry, which they subsidize the industry so we could prove it, but you can't subsidize the industry, and that bird amendment went away. And now the money, the tariff money coming in from the anti-dumping is not going back to the industry, the help of the industry, which we paid for it, but it's not coming back to us. We filed a lawsuit and we paid for it and couldn't can't get the reason the benefits from it. So now Cassidy has one up there now for the crawfish and and for the seafood. So hopefully that once that goes through, and if it goes through, then some of that money can come back. And what it does come back to us, and what it does, it helps pay for our equipment, our expenses. It's not money that gives to us, it's money that that goes towards our expenses and our uh our breakdowns and our few and and things like that. It's not a check in your hand, it's just what your expenses was. So that would help tremendously to help us through what we're doing. So the federal government is starting to help a little bit now that Trump's in there, the past administration, we couldn't get nothing out of them. You know, I've been going to Washington for 20 years. In fact, I'm leaving on the 27th this year, this this month here, and we're gone for four days and and we're gonna walk to here because we all we our own lobbyists, you know. We we can't afford a lobbyist. We we through the task force, we had lot we had hired a couple of them, but we our own lobbyists, you know. We do our own talking and and do our own fighting. So we leave on the 27th. I think we'll come back on the 30th.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

What are some of the stories uh you think that don't make it to the policy hearings?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

The dire need of what's happening to us. You know, it doesn't get to them, it doesn't get to the right places. Um, I did meet with not at Trump tonight, I did meet with the Secretary of Uh Commerce, um, Secretary of Labor. So we we are talking some of the right ones. I am talking into the administration now, some of the people in the administration. Um when I go up there, we're gonna have a meet with Kennedy on some of the issues that's there. So I, you know, I all we can do is just cross our fingers and they take it to heart and and realize that, you know, your people comes first. And that's what we're gonna try to get across to them. That how important it is for us to survive because you're losing a culture, you're using a way of life, and it's not only Louisiana, it's it's eight states. You know, it's a it's a lot in bald here.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

Considering last year that uh some of the tariffs the administration put into place and they went back and forth on, well, it's gonna be this much. Well, no, they lessened it, and then they went back. Are you worried the same thing might happen with shrimping? And then the tariffs are turned off and the market gets flooded again.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:58

Well, you see, what happened last year was when they started talking that back and forth, when the the foreign countries heard about it and they they started catching wind of what was gonna happen. Excuse me, they started pouring shrimp in here. I don't know how I I don't even I hadn't seen the numbers yet. And I will get them because we the end of the year is just up. I will get the true numbers, but they started pouring shrimp in here. So this this last year was a wash because they've dumped so many in here before the tariffs took into effect. So we're not gonna see any help from daddy at that part of it until maybe this year. But I hope they don't wish you wash you, which we got some tariffs on them ourselves. We just did that into dumping, like I said earlier. You know, we all we do have some tariffs on them now that we've done from 2002 and then last year we did one in October. So we do have our own tariffs on them, and whatever Trump puts, this goes on top of that. So if he puts 30% and we got 10, 15, then you know it's gonna be 45 percent. So we do have something that's staying that's gonna stay in effect. So I hope they don't go wishy washy because we really need help at this point. You know, I I can only I can only pray and and and putting God's hand on that issue.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:16

Um demographically, so we talked a bit about the age, right? You know, average trimper is 58. Um since you've been in it uh as a young man, how has it changed in terms of you know who's fishing? Have you uh because we had an influx uh in the 70s of folks from Vietnam uh come in and a lot of them became uh fishermen, and now they are basically Louisiana fishermen, just of Vietnamese descent. Uh how how has the the industry changed uh in that way?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:53

You know, um you had a good point there. There are Americans at this point because a lot of fish. Is still hollering about what went on at that time. But they are Americans and they are our fishermen. And we have a lot on our in our organization. We as Americans are, and they are Americans, don't get me wrong, but we the minority now. They're the majority. The Vietnamese and the Cambodians, because there's two different ones. The Vietnamese and Cambodia, they're two different people. And we're the same people, but different. But they're the minor minority, the majority now. And we are the minority. They have more people more of them than they have us at this point in time. Most of our American fishermen ain't got out. One of the reasons why is that they were fishermen back where they was from and they knew nothing else. You know, they they their kids and all, they won't let their kids and all get into the industry because they seen what's going on and they seen how hard it is for them that they have nothing else. Now, they've been sending their kids to school. You see the Vietnamese and the Cambodians all over. You see them in hospitals, you see them, you see them everywhere because they've been educated now, and they're not gonna let them do this. They don't want them to do this anymore. And and that that fleet's aging just like we are. You know, like you said, they come in the 70s, and and I remember when they came here, I was young enough to I was fishing at the time when they came. So but they the majority now, we we don't mind harding.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

Um here's a here's a question for you. So what about shifting the focus from regulation to innovation? So uh it seems to me, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, but uh part of the problem here is Gulf Shrimp is treated like a commodity. And since it's treated like a commodity, well you're competing with all this imported shrimp, right? So it's like you know, selling corn in a way, as opposed to treating it like a premium brand product. It's like, yeah, you can get shrimp from wherever you want, or do you want to eat golf shrimp, right? You know, there's shrimp, but then there's gulf shrimp. It's kind of like do you sell it like corn or do you sell it like wine from the Napa Valley? And do you think that approach could help the industry grow? So regulation vice innovation, because I remember years ago uh when the crawfish industry was going through its own uh series of uh problems and challenges, and I'm sure they still are, but they ended up discovering Sweden as an untapped market, and you know, the Swedes wanted a particular size crawfish, particular weight, you know, all the legs had to be on, and they were willing to pay, you know, higher prices to get that type of crawfish. Do you think there's an opportunity for that uh with you and your colleagues in in the industry?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:05

Yes. Um you you you you bring up a good point. Um in 2009, we went on strike, and Governor Gendal created the Shrimp Task Force, and one of the tasks this task force was put together for is to create a brand, Idaho Potatoes, you know? Yeah. And we spent about three or four million dollars on this brand. It's Louisiana authentic. Let me think of how I went now. Louisiana Authentic Seafood. Authentic, you know, it was in it. And and the three qualifications for it was landing, process, and package. It had to be land in Louisiana, it had to be processed in Louisiana, and it had to be packaged in Louisiana. Now, our processors don't didn't want to use it. They fought us to try to take, in fact, that's one of the reasons why our past president's gone, because he voted their way to take one of them out. So if you take one of them out, say, okay, I take landing out, I can process and package in Louisiana and call it Louisiana authentic CP shrimp. No, it's not gonna work. If authentic means undisputed origin. Um I fought in legislature, they try to get it passed before I take one of them out. I fought in legislature and I beat it. So it's still in place. We have the brand. But you understand where I'm coming from.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:54

Um there's issues in the industry with the processor side of it, that they have was caught American. They want um because asthma is Louisiana shrimp processors, and asthma has a brand yourself. They have their own brand, they don't need ours. You know, let us use our own brand. Let's get our processors to use it. We can't get them to use it because they say in that they can't distinguish where that's gonna come from, which you're buying from Louisiana Docks, you know what comes from Louisiana Docks and what you get out of Mississippi or Alabama or wherever, you know what comes in. You can keep them separate. We have issues here in our state, we have issues in all our states. We call it co mingling. So if and that we just passed legislation this last year to where whoever buys imported shrimp has to has to has to has to write it down, has to has to show where they bought it, had to buy a license and they have to show. So if you buy five thousand pounds of domestic and you buy ten thousand pound of imports, and you sell eight thousand pounds of domestic, we've got a problem. Because now they're not a domestic anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

So you see where I'm going with this. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:37

Uh, but then what it seems to me is if they're co-mingling, it still sounds like too many people are still focused on it as a commodity vice a premium product. And you know, I remember a conversation I had with uh a woman in the cheese industry in Wisconsin. And Wisconsin, uh, it seemed one of those, you know, rare instances where, you know, industry and government, you know, regulation and and and folks, you know, workers all were collaborating together over the years. And uh I'll have to reach out to her uh now that I'm thinking about it. But again, that there's some similarities, you know. They they want people have to be certified as uh you know cheesemakers. There's a whole variety of uh regulatory processes, but instead of being inhibitors to the industry, it protects the industry and it actually fuels it because you know they focus on, and this goes to what we talked about before, you know, health. They never want to see a recall involving cheese out of Wisconsin. Uh and you know, they focus on healthy and quality cheese. And again, from what you're describing, it sounds like there are opportunities in Louisiana for this, if not across the Gulf. Uh, and maybe it's not a Louisiana shrimp thing, it's a Gulf Coast shrimp. But uh again, innovation vice regulation, but that's probably a whole other discussion uh for for another day in a way. Um, but it does seem that there's an opportunity for it, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:27

It it the opportunity is there. And I look, I've been pushing it and I'm and I may bring it up at the next task force that you know we need to get back on it. We there's something that I don't want to leave lile down because you know, when you say Idaho, what do you think of? Louisiana, you think of seafood? You know, we we want that brand, and we should have that brand moving forwards. Um just to get everybody involved and get them to do that is is is the bigger issue. We can do it. There's no two ways about it, we can do it. There's not a store or a chain in Louisiana. You can you can go and find Louisiana shrimp. Not one, says Louisiana. Which what are we known for? But yet you can't walk in a damn store. So I'm gonna get I'm gonna get a bag of Louisiana shrimp. And you go look in there and you can't find Louisiana shrimp. Now, Rousers, they've been pushing to selling and they've been doing a good job of it, selling domestic shrimp. And I I you know I commend them. We need more like that. But to actually go get a bag of shrimp that says Louisiana shrimp, you're gonna die before you know, before you even find one. You're gonna you're gonna search the world and you're never gonna find it. That right there tells you there's a there's the market for that because I get calls all the time, where can I go buy Louisiana shrimp?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:57

Yeah, may I have to tell them to come to the coast and talk to the fisherman, it's the only thing I can tell you. Yeah, there's definitely got to be a market for it because if you walk into the same grocery store, right? And if I go to the cheese section, it tells me where it's from. And there'll be people like, I don't want to buy cheese from New York, you know, no offense to New Yorkers. No, I want to buy cheese from Wisconsin or I want to buy it from France or Belgium or whatever. So why can't we do this with shrimp?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:26

I think that would be, you know, I think whoever did it, man, they would hit, you know, let's let's make it as a prime product. You know, and there's no reason why we shouldn't. Because it is a prime, you know, that the salt water and the fresh water we have here in Louisiana is is is the sweetest shrimp that you ever gonna taste. You know, it's that blend that makes them good. Now you get off the shelf, you get some some iodine in them when they get in that deeper water, but when they come inshore, that is the sweetest shrimp you're ever gonna taste. Ever. You know, you can barbecue them, put them all, eat them right off the barbecue pit with nothing on them, and it tastes the flavors there. And that's something that we need to be pushing.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:08

You you make me think of you remember years ago when TV commercials were a thing, they were entertaining, and the one about gray coupon mustard, and it's like, excuse me, do you have any gray coupon? That's basically what we need.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:24

Um but it can be done. You know, it can be done. It really can be. And there's no reason why it shouldn't be done. It's just it's more about greed and money than it is about trying to save a way of life and a culture and and the heritage of Louisiana and bringing it down through generations. Why would you want to lose this? I I don't I don't understand. I really don't, it's hard for me to comprehend knowing where we came from or where we are today. It really is.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:52

Uh well uh this may be an oversimplification, but it could be uh it could be you know out of sight, out of mind. No, you're out there in you're you're out there in Venice, Louisiana. No one sees you, no one sees your colleagues out there. All they see is shrimp on on a bed of ice in the supermarket, and they just look at price per pound, and that's what they're not seeing. And the same thing with those involved in in government and regulation. And uh, I mean, I remember as a kid and talk and they were talking about the TEDs and protecting the turtles, and yeah, it sounds great. Uh, and yeah, we do want to, you know, you know, uh protect our uh Mother Nature out there, but then you know it's at what expense, right? Uh and then do we end up uh you know, good intentions line the road to hell, right? You know, right, you know, we we want to do the right thing, but are we creating so many rules for our own folks that we just weigh them down until they get crushed?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:07

Um and you had a good point because Noah's in NOAA study clearly says that half of the Louisiana, they call us part-time because we only have we seasonal.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:17

Which we're not part-time, we all the time, but they call us part-time because we seasonal said half of the part-time strippers will fade away. They knew this when he did it. It's in their own study. It's in their study. They knew it was gonna hurt us to a point where a point of no return. They knew it.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:36

Is there any final message? Is there any like final message you like to share with folks or anything you want, you know, people to uh to hear about that perhaps we haven't discussed or addressed?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:51

No, um I think we hit on a lot of things tonight. Um, but I do want them to know that just remember whenever you go get something that you're gonna feed your family, is make sure you get something that's good and healthy and something that's and I'm not just saying shrimp, you know. Just be aware of what's going on here today in this world. You know, food safety ought to be number one in this country. And hopefully, if you do go get shrimp, that you you take a good hard look at it and see where it's at and where it comes from and what's in it, and do the right thing. And if you want good seafood, just if you can't find the stores, just come to the coast, man. I look, we got a lot of people that's on Facebook, we got a lot of people on Instagram, we got a lot of people on on TikTok. Just find one of them and go go meet them, go see. Put a face to that that shrimp and and and see what what it's all about. You know, if you live in Louisiana, you ought to you ought to come see. If you've never seen it before, you need to come see. Because it's a big, it's a big part of Louisiana that that that you you can you will fall in love with it. You know, we we are we good people. We're not here to hurt anybody. We don't want to get rich, that's for sure. We're never gonna be rich. But we just want a way of life that we can we can just live our lives and and do the right thing. And just make sure you come find your fishermen and and connect the dots and say, hey man, this is what it's all about. I'm not only eating the right good stuff, I'm I'm helping Louisiana in the in the in the mean in the midst of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:25

Well, what do you think would happen if the shrimp industry in Louisiana, you know, dies? You know, what what what are the ramifications beyond the shrimp?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:42

Um a lot of people is gonna be out of work. Um, you know, like the older guys, you know, that's all they ever done their whole lives. Who's gonna hire them? What are they gonna go do? What is that family gonna do? What is Louisiana gonna, you know, you're gonna you're gonna put more on welfare, you're gonna put more on food stamps, you're gonna, they're gonna be elderly, you're gonna be taken care of. And because we work, my dad was 80 years, 86 years old when he died. And and you know, we we want to work to the till we can't work anymore. We don't want to be on welfare. And I hate to hate to even think about what it's gonna look like when the marine is empty and there's no boats in there, and there's no there's nobody down there working on their boats. And because you gotta remember it goes, it's a lot farther than boats. You're talking about hardware stores, you're talking about motor shops, you're talking about net shops, you're talking about grocery stores, you know, it it's a long list of things. It's just it's gonna really, it's gonna really affect Louisiana in a negative way.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:50

Well, I guess uh the idea is we do something about it then.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:57

That's what I'm talking about. Jump on board with me. I've been screaming a long time. Um, they know me now. They all know me, but to get them to listen, you know, knowing you and listening to you is two different things.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:09

Well, I'm more than happy to learn as much as I can from you and support you in any way I can. And this is one way uh I think I can do it. Uh, just communicating your message uh out to wider audiences. Um, and hopefully they'll they'll pass it along. I appreciate you sharing your experiences and observations. Uh, and to all those on the Gulf Coast uh who are providing the best tasting shrimp Mother Nature has created. Thank you. Uh to our listeners, thank you for joining us and listening to another episode of Brungert Law's Lang App, where we just believe the devil's in the details. Invite others to listen. Hey, uh AC, again, gratitude.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

Thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me hear our story. You know, it's not just mine, it's a Louisiana story, it's not our Louisiana, it's an eight state story, so remember that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:00

Privilege was all mine.