High Water Devastating For Louisiana’s Strawberry Crop

Devastating. That's how many Louisiana strawberry producers are describing the effects of this year's flooding on their crop. One grower is speculating that 90% of his crop was damaged or destroyed by the high water.

Despite the devastation the Ponchatula Strawberry Festival will open today to celebrate on of our state's most delicious crops.  Grower Eric Morrow told the Louisiana Radio Network that the high water in Livingstone and Tangipahoa Parishes will leave him without too much to show at this year's festival.

We just lost so much about a month ago during the rains and the flooding so it’s really hard to come back from all of that.

In his comments Morrow went on to say that not only did the rains come in abundance, they came at the wrong time. He says most of his crop was in the "green" stage. That's where the fruit on the plants was still green.

Everybody is pretty much in the same boat, I don’t think anybody is going to walk out of this berry season with too much money in their pocket.

Morrow says that while farmers of many other crops can get federal and state aid when their crops are affected by weather most strawberry producers cannot. There is usually not stipulation for specialty crops such as strawberries.

Us type of farmers, we’re basically on our own.

That means the Louisiana Strawberries will be in short supply and that means you can expect to pay a little more for what you'll be able to find in your favorite market. I do hope that you will be willing to pay a little more for a state grown product. These producers have suffered enough. The least we can do as strawberry lovers is help them out by purchasing home grown berries through out the season.