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Disaster declaration that allows crawfish farmers to take out loans to stay afloat has been passed
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BATON ROUGE - Over the last year, Louisiana has been hit with a major drought, causing crawfish farmers tons of trouble.
In February, Senator John Kennedy introduced the Crawfish Recovery Assistance From Weather Disasters And Droughts Act (CRAWDAD) to expand the emergency livestock assistance program funding to crawfish farmers. That means droughts would be classified as a weather emergency.
The governor's office teamed up with the Small Business Administration, a group sent to help crawfish owners apply for the disaster relief loan if and when it got approved.
"We want them to take advantage of that technical assistance that's available and start preparing to apply for the economic injury disaster loan," Deputy Business Director Jo Lawrence said.
While this loan won't erase the damage that has already been done, it does provide financial safety to small business owners who have struggled this season.
"This helps fill the gap," said U.S Congressman Troy Carter. "This helps put some resources in their pockets. Other than taking a complete loss they at least get to make up the difference by having some resources from the federal government."
The disaster declaration was signed earlier Thursday. Congressman Carter says since this loan is sanctioned through the federal government, they are able provide these loans with low interest rates included. The time frame to pay these loans back are still in the works.
Businesses accepted for the disaster loan can receive up to two million dollars in relief money.
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