Gravy

In “A Muddy Future for Louisiana Crawfish,” Gravy producer Eva Tesfaye traces the aftermath of the summer of 2023, when a severe drought in Louisiana devastated the 2024 crawfish season. The dry soil and extreme heat killed the crawfish while they were still burrowed underground, meaning when farmers flooded their fields in the fall, they found their harvest would be dismal for the spring. That caused both farmers and consumers to suffer. In Louisiana, where crawfish are normally around $3 per pound, prices reached as high as $9 a pound. In Texas, it was even higher, around $12 a pound.   Tesfaye followed this story while it was happening, and it left her with a new question: With climate change bringing more extreme weather, are there ways to protect the state’s beloved mudbugs? To answer that question, she talked to Michael Moreaux, a crawfish farmer experimenting with different agricultural practices to attempt to produce healthy crawfish that can weather anything.   By focusing on the health of his female