Crawfish price-fixing alleged

• By RICHARD BURGESS
• Advocate Acadiana bureau
• Published: Mar 6, 2008 - Page: 1BA - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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LAFAYETTE — A group of crawfish farmers says it will ask the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate allegations that big seafood wholesalers are working together to keep down prices at the dock.

Crawfish farmers are complaining of wholesale prices dropping from more than $2 per pound to $1 per pound in the past month.

The Louisiana Crawfish Farmers Association voted at a meeting Tuesday to suspend fishing for two days a week in an effort to raise the price by limiting supply.

Association Director Stephen Minvielle said Wednesday that he is gathering information on alleged illegal price fixing to submit to the state Attorney General’s Office.

He named no processors, but cites as evidence a series of price drops for crawfish that occurred across the state on the same day by the same amount.

“It would not surprise me if they drop the price again in the next few days to show us who is in control,” Minvielle said.

Crawfish farmers and crawfishermen in the Atchafalaya Basin have alleged collusion by major seafood buyers in the past, and Minvielle said the complaint was taken to former state Attorney General Charles Foti.

“We met with Foti, and it was quite obvious he was not going to do anything,” Minvielle said.

Minvielle said farmers will push the issue with state Attorney General James “Buddy” Caldwell, who was elected last year.

Processors have denied working together to keep down prices.

They say the crawfish market is driven purely by supply and demand, with high prices when supplies are tight — especially early in the season — and lower prices as supplies begin to increase this time of year.

“Once you reach a certain level of supply, the price starts changing, whether that’s crawfish or soybeans or widgets,” said Adam Johnson, owner of Bayou Land Seafood near Henderson and president of the Crawfish Processors Alliance, an industry group.

Johnson said he buys more than 2 million pounds of crawfish during the season for resale or processing, paying high prices to farmers when his customers are clamoring for crawfish, then dropping prices when his customers say they can get a better deal somewhere else.