As you go along Louisiana Highway 56 in the direction of the Gulf, you will come to a place where the road begins to seem uncertain. This is where the land narrows, the marsh approaches from both sides, and the number of boats parked in yards begins to surpass that of cars. The shrimp boat is a family asset in a town like Chauvin or Dulac that falls into the same category as the house: it is something that is passed down, maintained at actual cost, and essential to people’s understanding of what they do. Additionally, it’s becoming more and more parked rather than running. For many families, it is now just not financially feasible to put a boat in the water.
The origins of Gulf Coast shrimping can be traced back to a number of overlapping tragedies; most conversations begin with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which is true but not comprehensive. The infrastructure was physically devastated by Katrina. Biloxi’s processing facilities were destroyed. Along the Mississippi and Louisiana shores, hundreds of ships were lost or severely damaged. Most of those who rebuilt did so by taking out loans in the hopes that the market would rebound. They failed to take into consideration the possibility that the market would not turn around in their favor.
By the time they returned to the water, the American plate was increasingly dominated by inexpensive farmed shrimp from Vietnam, India, Ecuador, and Indonesia. Then, after the Deepwater Horizon leak in 2010, many Gulf fishing areas were closed, and consumers who had not heard of Biloxi prior to Katrina began to mistrust the safety of Gulf seafood. The full recuperation never materialized.
The import figures are startling. Nowadays, around 90% of the shrimp consumed in the US is imported. It is nearly impossible for a small operator to reconcile the 30–50% wholesale pricing difference between imported farmed product and indigenous wild-caught Gulf shrimp with any degree of marketing or brand loyalty.
Gulf shrimpers are conscious of the fact that they are offering a truly superior product, one that is wild-caught, has a cleaner flavor, has greater nutritional integrity, and is caught in accordance with some of the world’s most stringent environmental rules. However, when a supermarket consumer decides to buy in bulk, they frequently do so in response to a price, and Gulf shrimpers continually lose the pricing battle.
Shrimpers frequently discuss the regulatory burden, although it usually receives less attention than the import competition. From an environmental or management perspective, mandatory vessel monitoring systems, turtle excluder device restrictions, permitting moratoriums that restrict new entrants to the fisheries, and fuel costs that have increased without any structural relief are all justifiable.
When combined, they serve as a compounding tax on remaining in business on a fleet where the typical operator is operating on thin margins with outdated equipment and substantial debt. The existence of the restrictions isn’t the main source of frustration. The reason for this is that the antibiotic-laced imported product that is placed next to theirs in the freezer case does not seem to be subject to the same regulatory framework that penalizes a shrimper in Dulac for a reporting error.
The Save Our Shrimpers Act and the SHRIMP Act, which both seek to improve import testing and country-of-origin labeling, have received some support from Congress, especially from delegates from Gulf states. It is actually doubtful whether either will pass the current legislative environment.
Legislation pertaining to the wellbeing of domestic fishing communities has a long history of progressing slowly, and rural coastal livelihoods have generally received little political attention. The most impacted communities typically have minimal clout since they don’t make up a sizable voting bloc, they lack significant lobbying resources, and most Americans don’t think about their industry when they’re not eating shrimp.
