Story and photos by Alena Maschke 

​Christian Joseph Guinn is a rare breed in Louisiana. Unlike most of his fellow farmers, he doesn’t come from generations of growing rice in the fields of the Cajun Prairie. Instead, he decided early on that this was what he wanted to do. 
 
“I just always wanted to be around it,” Guinn said. Out of ten siblings raised in Mermentau, La., he’s the only one who went into farming full-time.
 
“I love planting something and really just watching it grow,” Guinn said, riding his truck along the edges of his crawfish and rice fields, where fledgling rice plants have begun to stretch their tender stems and blades of leaves toward the spring sun. 
 
It’s the beginning of rice season in South Louisiana and, so far, it’s looking to be a promising one.
 
“We had some fairly warm conditions, and the rice really looks good up to this point,” said Ronnie Levy, Louisiana rice specialist with the Louisiana State University AgCenter. 
 
The repeated cold spells of this year haven’t presented the most favorable conditions for rice, he noted, but the rice planted in the last two months seems to be chugging along nicely regardless. “It should start responding to the warmer temperatures, and hopefully we’ll get some sunlight.”
 
Working in the the sun, the cold, the muddy waters of his crawfish ponds, Guinn said he wouldn’t have it any other way. “Never in my life could imagine having to work in an office,” the 24-year-old said. Going into farming full time right after graduating high school, the field is his office now.
 
And Guinn approaches his trade with the analytical mindset of an accountant, albeit one in waders and overalls. He even took accounting classes at LSU Eunice to get a better grasp of the often difficult budgeting involved.
 
“That's the number one thing: to run a farming operation you have to keep your finances in check,” he said. “And it's just getting tougher and tougher every year.”
 
And every year, there are new uncertainties farmers have to confront. This year, changes in U.S. trade policy are likely to affect the import and export of Louisiana rice, as well as the cost of equipment and materials necessary for production, many of which are imported from overseas.
 
“When you see where some of these products come from, it makes you worry,” Guinn said. 
 
Urea is an example of an import product that has seen significant price fluctuations as a result of geopolitical dynamics, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions that followed, which sent prices for the fertilizer skyrocketing in 2022. Russia is the world’s biggest exporter of urea. Recently announced tariffs are likely to have a similar effect on equipment and other farming essentials imported from abroad.
 
“If the commodity price doesn't go up for next crop year, and we see a drastic increase in inputs again, like we've seen in the previous years, then we might be in even bigger of a bind than we are this year,” Guinn said. Current barrel prices for rice are below what he needs just to break even, he noted.
 
Barrel prices are the side of the equation where tariffs provide some hope to farmers like Guinn. 
 
The U.S. is both an exporter and an importer of rice. In 2023, a third of the country’s domestic use of rice was fed by imports, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, 40-45% of domestically produced rice is shipped overseas.
 
But selling rice domestically yields better returns for farmers, Guinn notes, and tariffs on other rice-producing countries could increase the percentage of rice sold domestically. 
 
With tariffs increasing the cost of imports and potential retaliatory trade actions by other countries making it more difficult for U.S. farmers to export their rice, more of it may end up being sold on the domestic market. “If we could sell as much rice domestically as possible, I think that's our biggest price advantage,” Guinn said. 
 
“It's always a concern when you start limiting markets, but there is still a growing population, a big demand,” Levy said. And, he notes, “producers are typically optimistic.”
 
With a livelihood that depends on the whims of Mother Nature at least as much as it does on the ever-changing tides of the global economy, a healthy dose of optimism is necessary for survival. “Farmers have that uncertainty every day with the weather,” Levy said. “The best thing they can do is look at: what do I have control over.”
 
When it comes to his fields, Guinn is turning the dials the best he can. Cut back on some fertilizers here and some bird treatment there, just enough to save some money without threatening his crop.
 
And despite all the challenges of farming, the uncertainty and hard work, Guinn said he’s in it for the long run. “If God lets me, I’ll be doing this the rest of my life.”

Story and photos by Alena Maschke 

On a frigid morning in late February, Mexican guest workers Juan Manuel Rico Olalde and Jose David Lopez Velazquez traverse William Hetzel’s 40-acre crawfish pond on Hetzel Road in Crowley, knee-deep in ice-cold water. 
 
Olalde has been coming to the U.S. for the annual harvest from his native Guanajuato, a historic mining town of colorful houses on steep mountainsides and a temperate climate, for more than ten years.
 
Working through two cold fronts of below freezing temperatures has been tough. “It’s hard, but we continue,” Olalde says. “As long as it’s not frozen, we work.”
 
The crawfish too have taken note of the cold temperatures, without allowing it to stop them in their tracks completely. “We’re two weeks behind on size and quantity,” Hetzel said, a development he attributes to the unusually cold weather during the first two months of the year.
 
During cold weather, crawfish turn to molting. This is positive for farmers and consumers — molting increases the crawfish’s size — but delays the harvest. During the process of molting, crawfish are vulnerable to predators, leading them to hide rather than venture into the traps. 
 
“It slowed the numbers of crawfish coming out the field,” Hetzel said.
 
Hetzel grew up around crawfish. His father started the family business in 1978, selling to local docks and processors, before starting his own dock in 1990. Growing up, Hetzel remembers coming back from school to a driveway lined with crawfish.
 
“We would have to park on the road to get to the house and I would go straight to work — we would wash, crawl through, load trucks,” Hetzel remembers.
 
He’s always had his crawfish ponds — 80 acres total, with 40 acres in crawfish rotation each year — but began farming in earnest in 2018. At the time, he was still working as a cardiovascular technician at a local hospital, a position he gave up in 2020 in response to vaccination requirements in the medical field, turning to the family business as his livelihood instead.
 
“I just always had a passion for it,” Hetzel said. Now, five years in, crawfish is his main source of income as the sole breadwinner for a family of five. 
 
Like most farming, it’s a fickle and unpredictable business that is highly dependent on each year’s weather conditions, but Hetzel is optimistic about this season. “Two years ago, it was a high volume season. Last year was a very low volume season. And then this year is more of a normal season,” he concluded.
 
Todd Fontenot, crawfish specialist at the LSU AgCenter agrees. “I'd say 90% of our producers are reporting that they're definitely having a much better year than last year,” Fontenot said. The 2023 drought meant that many farmers didn’t put as much acreage into production in the following season as they may have planned to, and those who did saw high costs and low yields. “We had a much more normal fall of 2024. After rice harvest, the conditions were much better than they were the previous fall,” Fontenot said.
 
The season already started promising, he noted, with some farmers beginning to harvest before the start of the new year. And while the cold fronts reduced harvest yields temporarily, Fontenot noted that farmers who held out last year likely ramped up production for this season given the favorable conditions, continuing a trend of consistently growing acreage over the past decade.
 
“We do have a lot of acreage. We’re probably going to harvest a higher acreage this year than ever before,” Fontenot predicted. While Fontenot estimates that 90,000 - 100,000 in acreage remained out of production last season, he points to estimates by the Farm Service Agency of 400,000 acres in production this time around.
 
How those ponds will fare and whether there will be a longer season because of the delays caused by the cold is difficult to predict. “Mother nature could always throw us a curveball,” Fontenot said. But, he said, “if those acres produce well, that is definitely a lot of crawfish on the market.”

Story by Alena Maschke

It all starts with a procession of covered wagons and riders on mules and horses, crossing the misty Cajun prairie on an early winter morning. Traveling most of southwest Louisiana on a weeklong trip, the Western Heritage Trail Ride marks the beginning of livestock show and rodeo week in Lake Charles, a celebration of the area’s Cajun and cowboy heritage.
 
“I used to hear people say: People from Lake Charles can’t make up their minds, do they want to be Cajuns or Texans,” said Blaine Crochet, one of the trail ride’s organizers. Traversing crawfish and rice fields in their Western attire to ride into the Burton Coliseum for the annual livestock show and rodeo, the trail raiders proudly represent a little bit of both.
 
But participants in the trail ride hail not just from Lake Charles, but all over Louisiana and beyond. Founded by Rudy Faulk of Kaplan in 1985, residents of Acadiana, Texas and even homecomers and visitors from other states saddle up to take part.
 
“We do all this to bring awareness to the livestock show, to the rodeo,” Crochet said.
 
The annual Southwest District Livestock Show & Rodeo is the largest district show in the state by participants, both two- and four-legged. Despite a decline in participant numbers following the 2020 storms that ravaged the southwest region, this year 600 exhibitors from a seven-parish area came to show roughly 1,500 animals, according to organizers. 
 
And there’s plenty of motivation to compete. The almost weeklong event also features a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association competition, which draws in hundreds of attendees over the weekend. Proceeds from the rodeo help fund the livestock show and scholarships awarded to participants. 
 
“That makes us kind of unique,” said Jimmy Meaux, LSU Ag extension agent for Calcasieu Parish and lead organizer of the event. Contestants received a total of $70,000 in scholarships, Meaux estimates. 
 
The livestock show and rodeo are the heart of the event, but throughout the week parades and festivities celebrate the local Cajun cowboy heritage. Just like trail ride organizer Crochet, many in the region have grown up just as comfortable in shrimp boots as they are in cowboy hats – and everyone gets to participate.
 
Three years ago, Meaux and his wife started a rodeo event for children with special needs. Inspired by their son Brody, who passed away at age 20 after a long and painful struggle with MECP2 duplication syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, which affects development of the brain and muscles, the “Brodeo” offers a unique opportunity for children to participate in accordance with their abilities.
 
“He went through a lot of pain and suffering, and I wanted something good to come out of that, so we came up with this,” JoAnn Meaux said of her son’s legacy.
 
For the children who attend, it’s a unique opportunity to socialize and participate in fun rodeo activities such as barrel racing on stick horses or riding a plastic bull. 
 
“It's a wonderful experience for them to get out, because some kids really don't have the opportunity,” said Heather Chaline, a special education teacher at Key Elementary in Sulphur, who brought a group of children to the “Brodeo” event this year.
 
Keeping the tradition alive hasn’t been easy, especially in a part of the state that has suffered severe damages and population losses from back-to-back natural disasters in recent years. And while there are still farming and ranching families in the area, few local residents today earn their livelihood that way. 
 
“We have fewer farmers than we used to have,” Meaux said. But participating in the competition teaches the young participants live skills they can apply in any career, he noted. “The skills that they get out of it, the kids, the life skills that they learn — I think they see the benefit of that.”
 
For children who show their animals in the competition, the livestock show is an opportunity to connect with their families’ farming and ranching roots. In the nearby barn, they enthusiastically sweep floors and put the finishing touches on their animals for the big show.
 
For Rhonda Bourgeois and her 11-year-old daughter Addie, showing livestock is continuing a long-held family tradition. “I’ve been showing since I was nine, in 4-H, my dad was showing since he was nine — it’s generation after generation,” Rhonda Bourgeois said. 
 
During the COVID pandemic, Addie got bored at home after finishing her remote schooling for the day, and eventually she asked for a cow, her mother remembers. So the family went up to Kentucky and bought a heifer for the then 8-year-old. She’s been showing at the livestock show ever since.
 
“It’s just family,” Bourgeois said. “It’s really special.”

Story by Alena Maschke 

​Walking onto the grounds of the Cameron Parish Fur and Wildlife festival, attendees are greeted by the sound of duck calls and shotgun blasts. Grab a fresh oyster topped with pickled quail egg on your way in, make your way past the nutria rat-skinning competition and straight to the gumbo cook-off tent, where contestants vie for the title of best wild game, poultry or seafood gumbo.
 
Nicknamed the “oldest and coldest” harvest festival in southwest Louisiana, the fur and wildlife festival marks the beginning of Mardi Gras season in this part of the state and celebrates a heritage of commercial hunting and fur-trapping that teeters on the edge of disappearance. 
 
But at least once a year, locals make sure that while an industry might be gone, its culture is not forgotten.
 
“It keeps everybody together — it’s a community deal. And we ain’t gonna let it die,” said Ben Welch, a Cameron native, second generation alligator farmer and member of the festival’s organizing committee for nearly four decades.
 
Fur-trapping, shrimping and fishing were once the main industrial drivers in Cameron Parish — many of its oldest families moved to this remote part of the state for its rich natural resources.
 
“That’s their livelihood — they came here to do it,” Welch noted.
 
But global market trends have made it increasingly difficult to make a living that way. Shrimpers and fishermen along the gulf coast have struggled to compete with imported seafood. Fashion trends have moved away from real fur and most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have complicated access to some of the biggest markets for fur export.
 
In the meantime, liquified natural gas has emerged as a major industry in the region, with southwest Louisiana being coined the LNG capital of the world in recent years, replacing traditional ways of making a living in Cameron Parish.
 
“The newer group, they’ve all taken to working in the plants, the industry. They’ve moved away from that type of livelihood,” Welch said. “It’s only going to be so long until they don’t know anything about nutria trapping, muskrat trapping, raising cattle. They ain’t going to know nothing about it.”
 
The festival’s gumbo cook-off now features a LNG division, where workers can compete on behalf of their companies.
 
Like Keanan Kyle Boudreaux, who’s team won the title this year. A field operator for Venture Global LNG, Boudreaux was raised in south Cameron Parish and has been competing in the competition since its inception. 
 
While he makes a living in the oil and gas industry, Boudreaux — himself an avid alligator hunter and outdoorsman — said the old and new ways of life in Cameron Parish can coexist, as they have for decades.
 
“Before that, we had the oilfield industry,” Boudreaux said of the LNG boom. “We always had some kind of energy in this town.”
 
Economic disruption and global market forces aren’t the only challenges Cameron Parish has faced. In 2020, two major hurricanes made landfall in the parish, destroying much of what was left after Hurricane Rita in 2005. For many, it was the last straw.
 
Already nearly emptied out after Rita, the parish saw another 15% population decline after the most recent storms. 
 
Boudreaux is the only one of his siblings who remains in south Cameron alongside his parents. His sister moved to Atlanta, other family members moved northward, toward the border of Calcasieu Parish and beyond. 
 
Boudreaux himself has purchased land to the north. “I don’t want to leave here, but I need a place to evacuate to,” he said. Still, his love for Cameron and its way of life remains strong. “It has deplenished since all these storms, but it’s something that you can’t give away,” he said. “It’s one of the best towns you’ll ever live in.”
 
For those who have left, the festival offers an opportunity to come back home and reconnect with their community. “With the two storms, everybody just scattered,” Welch said. “They come back here to mingle, visit and reunite with their family and friends. That’s ultimately what it’s about.”
 
That sense of community and love for its unique and long-standing culture is what makes Cameron — and the festival — special, said Ashley Gorrell, this year’s Fur and Wildlife Festival queen.
 
A Texas native, military kid and graduate of Leesville High School, Gorrell had gone for the title before and finally snatched the crown this year. 
 
“To me what’s special about Cameron Parish is they stay true to their roots and their history, and they just really want to share that with the rest of the world,” the 21-year-old said. “Their community is just so welcoming. Everybody feels like family, whether it’s your first time here or you’ve been coming here since 1955.”
 
While certain to impress, knowing how to skin a nutria rat isn’t an entry requirement. Just grab a bowl of rice and let the hot gumbo flow. 

Story by Alena Maschke 

Growing up on a dairy farm in nearby St. Helena Parish, Lisa Peairs has fond childhood memories of going into the woods with her family to pick out a Christmas tree every year. What the tree looked like was almost secondary, it was the family tradition that made it special. 
 
“I remember one time we ended up with a holly tree,” Peairs said, laughing. “The experience was more important than having the perfect tree.”
 
At Windy Hills Farm in Ethel, La., Peairs and her husband Ricky are hoping to give that same kind of family experience to their customers, who usually come as a family and pick out their tree, which they can either cut themselves or have cut by the farm’s seasonal workers. 
 
Like the Price family, who came out on a rainy Sunday afternoon to find the perfect tree for their home in nearby Zachary.
 
Melissa Price remembers visiting a tree farm in Zachary when she was younger. After it closed, she said, the family switched to artificial trees. This year, they decided to get a real tree again and after learning about Windy Hill Farms, made the trip to Ethel to pick one out.
 
What makes a real tree so special? “The smell,” Price said. “And just the experience, the memories of coming to cut it.”
 
Social media has been a boon for the farm, Peairs said. 
 
The couple planted their first tree in 1999 and at the time, they had to get creative to market their business on a shoestring budget. They put up signs on the side of the road, carefully noting down each sign’s location so they could be picked up later. “They were expensive!” Ricky Peairs remembers. 
 
They also noted down each customer’s name and address, so they could send them a card once the next season rolled around. Lisa Peairs remembers sitting in the freezing cold, surrounded by the fledgling rows of trees, making sales and writing cards for next year.
 
Since then, the couple has built a shed in which to make sales and construct wreaths and garlands, and most of its customers learn about the farm on Facebook or other social media platforms.
 
Despite this growth, a quarter century into their farm’s existence, the Peairs are happy to remain a small family business. “We don't want to be the Walmart or Christmas trees,” Peairs said. Instead, they’re focused on repeat business. “A lot of them come back every year,” she said of their customers. “We're seeing the second, third generation.”
 
But their marketing strategy and infrastructure aren’t the only things that changed over the past 25 years. 
 
Many traditional Christmas trees, firs in particular, don’t do well in the southern Louisiana climate, they are cut and brought down from Tennessee and North Carolina to be sold on seasonal tree lots. Instead, Christmas tree farms in the Deep South grow cypress trees, which have one significant side benefit: they don’t shed. 
 
Over the years, the types of cypress trees available have changed. When the Peairs first started their farm, they primarily grew Leland cypress, a highly adaptable, fast growing evergreen that performs well in the hot South Louisiana climate.
 
But the Leland cypress had its drawbacks compared to the Christmas trees imported from further up north. It didn’t have the smell many people expect in a live tree and its limbs tended to droop more easily, making them difficult to decorate.
 
Over time, the Peairs began planting more Murray cypress, a new variety of the traditional Leland cypress that was cultivated to have more Christmas tree-like qualities — an herbal smell and stronger limbs.
 
This year, Lisa Peairs said, their Carolina Sapphire variety — another type of cypress with a slightly blue sheen to it — has been performing particularly well.
 
“Those have just been massive this year,” Peairs said. Because of its slightly blue color, the Carolina Sapphire had been more difficult to sell in the past. But the variety performed exceptionally well through last year’s drought, Peairs noted, making the lush, tall trees stand out this year.
 
“Last year was a really, really bad year. Probably the worst we've had,” Peairs said. Her husband Ricky estimates that Windy Hills Farm lost several hundred trees to the drought. But the couple is hopeful that the farm will make a full recovery. “I think by next year, we’ll be good,” Peairs estimated.
 
And while the farm does the bulk of its business in the first two weeks of December, running a Christmas tree farm is a year-round operation. In January, the Peairs will start planting new trees to replace the ones they sold for this year’s holidays. 
 
Lisa still works full-time as a veterinarian, so her husband Ricky, who retired from his role as an operator at Dow Chemicals, spends his summer tending to the trees, making sure the soil is well fertilized, weeds are removed and there aren’t any fungi interfering with the trees’ health.
 
The couple had only been married a few months before starting the farm, and both admit they had no idea how much work it would be. “I just thought it would be neat,” Lisa Peairs said of her dream to have a Christmas tree farm. Looking at her husband, surrounded by thousands of Christmas trees and with Santa Claus and his elves nearby, Peairs jokes: “This is the last thing he ever agreed to.” He smiles and, moments later, returns his attention to constructing a 25-foot garland.

Story by Alena Maschke 

​Sandy Marx watches her students calmly round the barn, counting the rhythm of the horses’ hoofs hitting the sandy floor. She observes the movements of both horse and rider with surgical precision, aware of the interplay of each joint and muscle. 
 
“We're talking about the biomechanics of the horse, and that's what I teach,” Marx said, as she analyzes the horses’ gaits, the position of their legs as they walk and stand, and the way their shoulders move when they turn. 
 
A chiropractor by trade, Dr. Marx approaches horsemanship with an almost scientific vigor, helping her students perfect their style and connection with the horse over years of detail-driven training. Marx is one of only a few trainers in Louisiana who focus on English style dressage, but her school forms part of a much larger industry that has deep roots in the state.
 
Nationwide, the equine industry created an economic impact of $177 billion and was linked to 2.2 million jobs in 2023, according to data collected by the American Horse Council. In Louisiana, horse racing, recreational horsemanship and competitive events have a significant economic impact as well, although current data is difficult to come by.
 
The equine industry is probably one of the most overlooked and under-analyzed sectors of Louisiana’s agricultural sector, despite its significant economic impacts and deep cultural roots. But there is a movement of horse enthusiasts, many of them women, hoping to bring more attention to the industry and ensure its survival.
 
Women like Neely Heidorn, equine extension specialist with the LSU AgCenter. Heidorn grew up a mischievous child in a small town in California’s Mojave desert, and came to horses as a way of staying out of trouble. “It hasn’t stopped since,” Heidorn said of her passion for all things horses.
 
As the AgCenter’s equine specialist, Heidorn helps owners with all aspects of maintaining their horses, from feed to hoof management. Through her involvement with the Louisiana Equine Promotion and Research Advisory Board, she also helps direct funding toward events, facilities and equine-related activities.
 
The board was created in 2021 to increase awareness and pool resources to assist the industry. In 2022-23, the board awarded a total of $194,000 in grants with an economic impact of $4.5 million, 50% of which was generated by out-of-state funds. 
 
“The Louisiana equine industry has a $3 billion economic impact touching every parish and community in our great state,” Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain said in a press release announcing this year’s round of grants last month. “The industry is a valuable part of Louisiana’s economy. We were excited to see all of the wonderful things this board accomplished over the last year, and we hope to see it continue to grow.” 
 
Making it in the equine industry or even just being a private owner is challenging. “If you want to make a million dollars in horses you better start with two,” Heidorn jokes. Owning and maintaining horses is expensive, and inflation in recent years has added to that burden. Feeding just one horse now easily costs around a thousand dollars a month, according to Marx.
 
But despite the challenging economic climate, for many in the industry, horsemanship is a matter of passion and heritage. “Everybody's papaw or auntie has had some type of experience with horses, or has horses,” Heidorn said. “It's really part of the culture in our state.”
 
Like Laney Richard, who grew up working cattle on horseback on her grandfather’s farm. Now, she serves as the point of contact for the LSU AgCenter’s master horseman program, and recently taught her first set of classes for a cohort of aspiring master horsemen to be.
 
While she’s worried about a potential decline in the industry, Richard is hopeful that programs like the master horsemanship training and the advisory board’s grant initiatives can help sustain it and continue its tradition in Louisiana.
 
“Our focus is to help people and just get more people involved,” Richard said. “And in return, they can give back to the youth.” 
 
For all its challenges, “the equine industry in Louisiana is robust,” Heidorn said. According to latest estimates shared by the advisory board, there are some 40,000 owners and 160,000 horses in the state.
 
Bills to create the board and secure steady funding for it in recent years show a political will to ensure the industry’s continued and elevated role within the state’s agricultural sector at large, Marx noted, making her optimistic about its future. 
 
Marx, who has trained in dressage schools across the globe and has been a part of just about any equine professional organization imaginable, is steeped in institutional knowledge. Yet, standing in the barn on a Saturday morning, watching her students make their rounds, what she reflects most deeply on is the uniting nature of working with horses and the impact it has on both the human and the animal.
 
“It brings people together,” Marx said. 
 
Her students, all women, come from a variety of backgrounds. One is trained in fashion design, another is an architect, yet another works in the oil and gas industry. All say they find a sense of calm while working with the horses that keeps them coming back. 
 
“It makes these people greater by the challenge of doing something that's hard, and it is hard,” Marx said, a statement that is just as applicable to dressage as it is to the equine industry at large. “If it wasn't, everybody would be doing it.”

Story by Alena Maschke 

​Sitting on the combine, the Blanchard family’s youngest son, Blaine, easily switches between talking to his dad and uncle who are out in the field with him, and using the rudimentary Spanish he’s picked up to coordinate with the seasonal workers who pick up the harvest.
 
Blaine Blanchard, 23, and his brother Brayden, 26, are continuing the family tradition of cane farming in St. Martin Parish in the fifth generation. Using their individual talents, they are poised to take over the family business and are already working to bring the operation into a new era.
 
As a student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Blaine quickly realized that sitting in a classroom wasn’t for him. He remembered his great grandfather, who was still helping out in the fields at 102 years old, and his grandfather, who can still be found roaming the family cane fields every day. “When I was young, I'd always come to work with my dad,” Blaine said. Now an adult, “I liked the idea of the farm and I wanted to give it a try.”
 
Eager to ensure the family business’ survival for generations to come, Blaine is part of working out the kinks of a new system the family is trying. Instead of the traditional 6-foot-wide beds, the Blanchard family is planting their sugarcane in 8-foot-wide beds, a change they hope will increase efficiency and create cost savings.
 
Fuel and labor are among the highest expenses for cane farmers and the faster turnaround on wider rows has the potential to save on both. But the change isn’t without its challenges. When the engine blew on one of the family’s combine’s last year, it couldn’t be easily replaced — traditional machinery is set up to harvest the narrower beds. 
 
Collaboration and assistance is common among cane farmers, Blaine said, but because of their new setup, “nobody else could come help us.”
 
But despite those challenges, “it's worked great for us so far,” he noted. 
 
For this season, the family bought an additional combine to ensure they wouldn’t lose out on any harvesting time should one of their existing ones go down. Blaine estimates that by planting on wider beds, the family saves roughly 30% of runs up and down the field for planting, fertilizing and harvesting — on 3,700 acres, that spells significant cost savings down the line. 
 
The increased efficiency also means that the family can be more self-sufficient. Should they, for example, be unable to hire seasonal workers from abroad one season, Blaine said he’s confident that the family could still meet their quotas with the labor on hand, something he considers a direct result of the more efficient process they’ve implemented.
 
Blaine’s father first learned about this different way of planting on a trip down to South Texas, where farmers were already experimenting with it. Few farmers in Louisiana were willing to take on the upfront investment and labor it takes to convert their farms to the new system, in part because it requires longevity to pay off. 
 
“A lot of people that are in the farming industry, their sons don't want anything to do with it,” Blaine said. Without a new generation to carry on the torch, the investment is unlikely to be worth it, leading many Louisiana farmers to carry on as usual instead.
 
For the Blanchard sons, the continuation of the family business is a point of pride. While Blaine prefers the hands-on, dust-in-the-air, cane-cutting side of things in the field, his brother Brayden has dedicated himself to improving the product the family can plant in their fields in the future.
 
As a research assistant at the LSU AgCenter’s Sugar Research Station, Brayden works to optimize cane varieties through scientific breeding. 
 
“Something that we as breeders aim for in new varieties is longevity, multiple harvests,” Brayden said. More longevity and multiple harvests means less time and money spent planting, another way of saving costs and increasing the yield on money already spent. In addition to that, Brayden and his team also breed for increased resilience to cold temperatures and disease, further increasing yield potential and consistency.
 
André Blanchard, the boys’ father who currently co-owns the farm with his brother-in-law and nephew, said Brayden’s teachers and professors tried to encourage his son to take his talents to the medical field. “He wouldn’t even consider it,” André Blanchard said.
 
The survival of the farm and the local industry at large is what motivated Brayden to go into this field of research once he started college. “​​I started on the farm,” he said. “I figured I won't be at home on the farm anymore, but that was my way to continue and make an impact.”
 
This year’s harvest has been strong according to Blaine, aided by favorable climate conditions. 
 
“We had rain when we needed rain, and we had dryness when we needed dryness,” he noted. Planting was completed in record time, he added, and the sugar cane currently in the field is healthy and strong. Quotas at the mill have been strong too, a result of investments made by the co-op, which the family is a part of, Blaine pointed out.
 
André Blanchard, 54, said he’s proud beyond words that his sons and nephew are eager to be part of the family’s legacy and continue it. “I can’t describe to you the feeling I get when my nephew or my son tell me about something that’s going on in the field,” Blanchard said. 
 
Just like him, they grew up to appreciate the land and what it has provided for their family. “It’s just so rewarding to travel the field at sunset and see the fruits of your labor,” Blanchard said. One day, it will be time for the next generation to take over although, if the Blanchard family history tells you anything, none of them will be leaving the field anytime soon.
 

Story by Alena Maschke 

​The sound of an aircraft flying low overhead still shakes Doug Branch. 
 
Hearing a sound similar to the planes that dropped pink fire retardant and water on the raging flames below stirs up memories of sitting on his porch night after night, watching the fires in the distance. Finally, as the flames surrounded his pasture, they grabbed everything they could, loaded up livestock and equipment and made their exit from the family ranch — unsure whether there would be anything to return to.
 
“It was just unreal — I mean, anxiety, every day,” Branch remembers. “That's the worst thing I've ever been through in my life,” he said of the stress of those late days of August last year.
 
A year later, Branch and other farmers and ranchers have mostly recovered, but some scars — economic and emotional — remain.
 
Between August and October last year, wildfires burned through 60,000 acres of woods, timber farms and pastures, in an area of the state where timber production and ranching make up a major chunk of the economy. Thousands of animals — cattle, horses, donkeys, goats — had to be moved around, often more than once, to save them from the erratic movement of the fires.
 
In the rural parishes of Beauregard and Vernon, fires that were put out reignited, with tall pine trees falling across firelines and serving as a bridge for the flames to cross. “They were just falling right across them and catching and catching again,” Branch remembers. “You just thought there was never going to be an end to them.” 
 
Ranchers had already started the summer off at a disadvantage. Because of the dry conditions, hay was hard to come by and expensive. Branch said that at the time of the fires, he had about 18 rolls, compared to the over 100 rolls he would normally stock. Those same conditions then provided the perfect environment for wildfires to spread, burning up much needed pastures.
 
Losing pastures was one of the most significant impacts many ranchers in Beauregard Parish saw from the fire, according to BJ Warden, whose team at the Beauregard Parish Covered Arena oversaw the regional efforts to evacuate livestock. 
 
“Their houses weren't taken, but most of the pasture land was gone,” Warden said of many of the ranchers who brought their animals to the arena. 
 
But there’s a silver lining. Stuck with a flat tire recently near Singer, one of the hotspots of last year’s fires in Beauregard, Warden noticed something. “All the trees are still dead, but the grass is 20 times greener now,” he said. Burning vegetation returns some nutrients back to the soil, which can help certain plants, like grass, regrow stronger. 
 
Generally, more moist weather conditions this year have contributed to lower fire risk and drastically lower hay prices, Branch noted. Where he paid $60 a bale last year, that price is now down to $30.
 
Still, he’s seen some long-term impacts from the fires. Not long before, Branch had shifted his cattle production from commercial to registered breeding stock. His first generation of Brangus calves, which was born after the fires, was smaller in volume than he expected, something he attributes, in part, to the impact of the evacuations on his cows.
 
“I blame that a lot on hauling these cows and moving them so much, they were stressed out,” Branch said. 
 
According to Warden, some Beauregard farmers lost cattle during the fires due to stress and smoke inhalation. Some, he said, just opened up their pasture gates and hoped for the best. “With a wildfire, you never really know which direction it's going to go,” Warden said. “So at the height of it, everybody was really just at the last minute evacuating their animals.”
 
Robin Stewart said she was able to evacuate horses from her father’s Leesville ranch early on to nearby Hicks. Still, she stayed until the flames came closing in on her father’s home, the air so thick with smoke she couldn’t see but a few feet in front of her, trying to defend the property and evacuate animals that had been moved there from other fire-threatened areas.
 
When she finally left, “I just looked in my rear mirror, and I just knew there was no way anything would be left standing,” Stewart remembers. “I had no doubt it would all go up.” 
 
In what even emergency responders considered nothing short of a miracle, her father’s home and all other structures on the property were left unscathed. Still, the damages were significant. Mature timber that the family had been waiting to cut until prices imcreased was lost, so was a fence on the border of the property. The grounds that could be used as pastures for cattle are still muddy and uneven from fire lanes that were cut across the property.
 
“We lost a lot,” Stewart said. Still she’s determined to bring cattle back to the ranch, something she had hoped to do before the fires. “In order to have cattle, you have to have good fences,” she explained. But, she added, “As soon as these fences are fixed, there will be cattle here again.”
 
Despite all that was lost in the fires, Branch, Warden and Stewart all focused on the positive: the immense support from everyone in the community. 
 
Family members, neighbors, first responders and sometimes strangers helped fight fires and evacuate cattle and equipment as the fires raged around them. Volunteers at the Beauregard Parish arena worked day and night to take in and move cattle around, even as the air filled with the smell of smoke and ashes were raining down on them.
 
“I’ll be eternally grateful to the brave men and women who worked tirelessly without complaining,” Stewart said. “I’m just glad we didn’t lose everything we had.”

Story by Alena Maschke 

On a blisteringly hot Wednesday afternoon on the Stelly family farm near Kaplan, barrels worth of golden rice kernels pour into a container to be hauled off for processing. After days of rain, fifth generation rice farmers Sandrus and Adlar Stelly are glad to finally be ramping up their harvest. 
 
“Everybody is in the fields harvesting right now,” said Ronnie Levy, Louisiana rice specialist at the LSU AgCenter. Levy has been making his rounds to four farms in Acadia, Allen, Jeff Davis and Vermilion parishes to help farmers improve their operations and test out the AgCenter’s research in real-life conditions. 
 
This year, Louisiana farmers planted more rice than last year, but slightly less than expected due to very wet conditions during planting season. In total, 475,000 acres of rice were planted across the state this year, compared to 462,000 last year. 
 
The acreage fell short of the 500,000 acres anticipated by the AgCenter, largely because heavy, consistent rain prevented farmers in North Louisiana from planting rice. Almost all rice in the northern part of the state is drill seeded, Levy noted, a technique that doesn’t work in very wet conditions. 
 
“North Louisiana was so wet that a lot of that rice didn’t get planted,” Levy said. Instead, farmers there shifted to soybeans, despite rice being the preferred crop because it fetches higher prices. In southwest Louisiana and Texas, Hurricane Beryl caused some damage to existing rice fields. 
 
Overall, this year’s weather conditions have been a mixed bag for farmers. While last year’s extreme drought with sudden, short bouts of rain lead to decreased milling quality due to grain breakage, this year’s heavy rains have delayed harvesting. 
 
“Last year, around this time, we were praying for rain,” Adlar Stelly said. “We sure will watch what we wish for, because He will deliver.” A week and a half into their usual harvesting period, the Stellys anticipated they had harvested roughly 30% of their 3,000-acre crop of conventional rice varieties, compared to the usual 50%. 
 
While the dry season last year was challenging for the farm, especially with regards to crawfish production, it had its long-term benefits. Less fungal spore carryover from the previous year has meant less disease pressure on this year’s crop. In turn, the rain this year is starting to cause some issues with disease, according to Levy. 
 
“Humidity increases the fungi spreading on the plants,” Levy said. Recently, Levy and his team have seen an increasing number of Cercospora infections across the fields they visit, a disease that leads to empty hulls or “false grains”. While it’s difficult to determine how much the spread of the fungus will affect this year’s yield before the rice is processed, Levy anticipates that 10-20% of this year’s crop is affected by the disease. 

​Disease prevention and treatment is one of many things Levy and his team at the AgCenter help farmers in its Louisiana Rice Research Verification Program with. The program aims to improve the economic and ecological sustainability of the participating farms while also verifying whether the findings of the AgCenter’s research are useful to farmers. 
 
The program also collects data on the increasingly popular rotation of rice and crawfish. 
 
“Drainage is probably one of the biggest things that we see problems with,” Levy explained. 
 
“We can’t really rotate with many other crops because rice likes soils that have almost no drainage.” Those aren’t ideal growing conditions for most other crops which, in addition, can carry over disease to the rice crop. 
 
This has made crawfish a recommended rotational crop for rice, but there’s less long-term research on how this rotation can be optimized. “We still are trying to determine the long-term effect of rice-crawfish rotation, because it’s a relatively new rotation system,” Levy said. “We are still learning.” 
 
The Stellys are currently in their second year of participating and say they’ve seen increased yields as a result of the collaboration. “It sure helped me and him a lot,” Sandrus Stelly said. “It showed us a few newer techniques. And we even brought back some older stuff that we were doing years ago and reminded us of that we’re actually bringing up yields with a little less cost,” his brother Adlar added. 
 
Cost-savings are key at a time when farmers are facing economic pressure from all sides. Inflation has driven up the cost of labor and parts, and high interest rates have made crop loans more costly. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reports the average interest rate on all types of farm loans topped 8% in 2023, the highest in 20 years. Rates have climbed for eight consecutive quarters. 
 
“We’re doing everything we can in the field. We’re seeing better yields, and we’re working on trying to cut down on costs, but one of the main things we’re facing right now is inflation and interest rates,” Adlar Stelly said. 
 
The verification program, Levy hopes, can help alleviate some of those pressures by testing and implementing sustainable practices and growing yields in a way that is cost-effective. 
 
“Every week, when we go out and look, depending upon what’s in the field, we try to make economic recommendations,” the rice specialist said. “Sustainability is kind of a buzzword, but we’re looking at practices that improve sustainability.” 

Story by Neil Melancon & Kristen Oaks-White, Louisiana Farm Bureau 

Story and photos by Alena Maschke 

Looking out onto his sugarcane fields from his porch on a warm early June afternoon, Chad Hanks is hopeful. After weeks sprinkled with days of heavy rain, the ground is moist. “The cane is as beautiful as it’s ever been,” the cane and crawfish farmer observed. 
 
Last summer, Hanks was looking at a very different picture. “Last year at this time, we were well into subsurface moisture deficiency,” said Hanks. And while Louisiana’s sugarcane industry managed to defy the most grim predictions, producing 1.3 million tons of sugar in the 2023 harvest, crawfish farmers weren’t so lucky.
 
A hot, dry summer led to unprecedented losses for the state’s crawfish industry, as seed crawfish died in their dried out burrows and farmers had to dedicate significant resources to keeping the fields flooded for the new generation to grow.
 
“It was just evaporating, the pumps were running constantly and they just couldn’t keep up,” said LSU AgCenter’s crawfish specialist, Mark Shirley, whose job of advising farmers on how to improve their yield was made nearly impossible by the brutally hot and dry weather. “It was frustrating because you’re trying to battle Mother Nature.”
 
When it came time to harvest, the devastation became apparent. “They did all the steps to produce the crop, but when they set up the traps the crawfish weren’t there,” Shirley said. 
 
Now, as crawfish farmers stock their rice fields and ponds for the new season, the impacts of those losses are still apparent. Crawfish for seeding is hard to come by and sold at a premium as a result. 
 
Doug Zaunbrecher, whose family farms crawfish near Eunice, said the only reason they still harvest into June is to have enough crawfish to seed. And while other farms are reducing the amount of crawfish they seed per acre as a result of the current market conditions, the Zaunbrechers are going all in by seeding double this year.
 
“We’re just taking a gamble,” Zaunbrecher said. 
 
There’s only so many ways to face uncertainty in the farming business and for the Zaunbrechers, the strategy is to go full steam ahead. “We don’t know what next year will bring,” Phillip Zaunbrecher said. “We’re trying to get the volume back in the ground.”
 
That the volume wouldn’t be there for this past season became apparent in October 2023. Shirley remembers checking the ponds for young crawfish and coming up with nothing. “The babies weren’t there,” he said. Hanks, a 20-year veteran advocate for the Louisiana agricultural industry began discussing avenues for relief.
 
To help recoup some of the sunken costs of the 2023-24 season, Hanks and several of the state’s political representatives in Washington, D.C. lobbied the United States Department of Agriculture for support. After some time spent explaining the crawfish business to administrators with limited understanding of this highly regional crop, they succeeded. 
 
“They were at least willing to try to understand a commodity that’s really foreign to them,” Hanks said. “It’s so unique. It’s regional, but it’s grown into a multi-million dollar economic boost to the state of Louisiana.” 
 
For the USDA to be receptive to the plight of crawfish farmers is a relatively new development. Crawfish was first recognized as a crop by the agency during the COVID-19 pandemic, marking the first time farmers were eligible for the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-raised Fish or ELAP program. 
 
This year will be the first time they will be eligible as a result of a natural disaster, Hanks said, referring to the intense drought of 2023. Senator John Kennedy, who helped advocate for the assistance, proposed a law that would ensure crawfish farmers’ permanent inclusion in the program.
 
Just how much money will flow into Louisiana through the program remains to be seen. The amount of assistance each individual farmer receives is determined by the size of their farm and how much crawfish they were able to harvest despite the challenging conditions. 
 
But one thing is certain, Hanks said: the federal aid will have a significant impact on the individual farms and the state’s economy as a whole in what he called a “domino effect” of relief. “It’s going to make a tremendous impact on our local economies, the ag economy, vendors that support them,“ he said. “In no way is it going to make people whole as if they had a normal harvest and season, but it’s going to be a tremendous shot in the arm.” 
 
Crawfish farmer and processor Don Benoit said he has already applied for the relief program after a devastating season for his crawfish business. Over the past season, his 2,000 acres produced a small fraction of his yearly average, Benoit said, eventually leading him to give up on harvesting altogether.
 
The federal aid will help recoup some of the costs of trying to produce a crop that eventually ended up failing, he noted. As for this upcoming season, he’s hoping that Mother Nature will help out and that crawfish will make a return under better conditions. 
 
“They’re very resilient and sometimes they come back on their own. I’m hoping that’s going to happen,” Benoit said. And while he’s not exactly hoping for a hurricane, a little tropical depression in the fall probably wouldn’t hurt, he added. “That’s when we need the water,” he said. “Those are the months that make the season.
 
And predictions for this summer suggest that his optimism is well founded. While forecasters predict another swelteringly hot summer, they also expect significantly more rainfall. That spells good news for crawfish farmers. “We can probably survive the heat as long as we have enough rain,” Shirley said. 
 
Some farmers will be limited in how much they can seed and some fields will likely be out of rotation for a season, Shirley pointed out, but eventually, experts agree, the industry will find its footing again. 
 
“Last year is last year, we’re going to leave it behind,” Hanks said. “I think we can recover in a crop cycle.”

Hubern Doxey’s family has lived off the land in Cameron Parish for generations. His grandfather was one of the state’s most prolific fur traders. Prior to the 2020 hurricanes that reduced much of the parish to rubble and pushed many of its residents to leave, his family also owned an oyster house in Cameron. Doxey himself is a fisherman who specializes in crabs, shrimp and oysters.

“My kids, when they’re old enough to take over, hopefully I’ll still be in business,” Doxey said of the next generation poised to continue the family tradition.

Natural disasters, high insurance premiums, seafood imports and a local focus on making Cameron Parish the nation’s primary exporter of liquefied natural gas have made it difficult for residents to continue this tradition. But a grant program by the Louisiana State University Sea Grant initiative introduces an alternative way of doing so: farming oysters.

Oyster farms, or alternative oyster cultures, are not a new concept. In the eastern part of the state, where private water bottoms are more common, oystermen have farmed the hard-shelled mollusks for years. But on the western side of the state, where almost all water bottoms are public land, they were more difficult to establish.

It took years of advocacy, research and legislative action to find an appropriate area to house the farms, and go through the legal process and environmental surveys required to secure a spot where oystermen could place their cages, which comprise the farms. But eventually, last year, the first cages went into the waters of the Calcasieu Lake, and in March, the first oysterman was able to sell his Cameron Parish oysters to local restaurants.

“They are putting a product on the market now that is truly their identity,” said Earl Melancon, a scholar with LSU’s Sea Grant program. Unlike oystermen on the eastern side of the state, who have long leased their personal oyster grounds from the state, their Cameron counterparts “never had the ability to say: these are truly my oysters,” Melancon said. Now, he added, that’s changed. “I see the pride that they’re taking now.”

​So far, two oyster farmers, Doxey being one of them, have been able to raise oysters in the lake, with five more joining in the upcoming season. One, David Sorrells, recently started selling his first oysters. Together with Doxey, he sold 2,000 oysters on the half shell at a recent festival in Lake Charles. He also counts three high-end local restaurants among his clients.

A former restaurateur — he once owned one of the restaurants that he now sells his oysters to — Sorrells had long been interested in introducing more home-grown seafood to the local market, but struggled to procure it.

“I knew that we had good seafood in this area,” he said. “But I kept hitting a brick wall.” So when the opportunity arose to get into the business himself — and receive some funds to help him get started — he was all in. After doing extensive research on the industry, he built a bottle nursery for his first round of seeds and, a few months later, his first batch of oysters hit the market.

And the market responded. Andrew Green, the chef and owner of 1910 restaurant in downtown Lake Charles and an acquaintance of Sorrell’s from his restaurant days, said the quality of the oysters he has received from Cameron Parish so far has been top-notch. “His oysters are beautiful, that’s for sure,” he said. 

Green previously served Murder Point oysters from Alabama, but the response from customers to his introduction of a truly local product has been met with much more fervor. “The Murder Point oysters weren’t quite as hot a ticket,” he said. Now that he serves oysters from just across the parish line, “people are excited about them,” he noted.

Sorrells, who trained under world-renowned chef Thomas Keller at the three-Michelin-star restaurant French Laundry in Napa Valley, California, and was involved in some of the most well-regarded restaurants in Lake Charles, saw a business opportunity in the oyster farms, but that wasn’t all.

As an avid fly-fisherman, Sorrells was concerned about the depletion of local ecosystems caused by overfishing and industrialization, and the way Cameron Parish had been erased from public consciousness after several massive storms destroyed much of its infrastructure and sent people fleeing the coastal community.

“Cameron Parish has been all but forgotten, but man, if you can see the beauty in it. I want to start an effort to bring that back. We need more than just oil and gas in Cameron,” he said. “To me, it starts with oysters. Oysters are the foundation.” 

As for the business side of things, Sorrels said he’s not sure yet how things will bear out, but he sees plenty of potential. Together with another well-known Lake Charles restaurateur, he plans to open an oyster house, the pair is currently in lease negotiations for a large restaurant space on one of the city’s major thoroughfares. He also sees an opportunity to ship directly to clients through an online shop, possibly offering a line of hot sauces and other oyster-related condiments.

The Cameron Parish Port Commission, which was instrumental in securing an area for the budding oyster farmers to lease, certainly sees the economic potential. “I view this, and the port does, as another way to give our oystermen an opportunity to market a product year round,” Director Kim Montie said. “It’s just another source of economic development for the rebuilding of Cameron.”

It being Cameron Parish, there may be more rebuilding to be done in the future, with the looming threat of the next hurricane always hanging over the new farmers’ heads. According to Doxey, the oystermen have already created contingency plans, learning strategies from their counterparts to the East. While maybe not the most sophisticated option, they plan to stick with what they have learned to be effective. 

“Basically, we’re just going to sink them and hope for the best,” Doxey said. To recoup any losses associated with this approach, they are currently lobbying the Louisiana legislature to make their business eligible for crop insurance, protecting them in case of the ever-present risk of natural disaster.

​The AOC business, many of its proponents pointed out, is ripe with opportunities for collaboration — in Cameron, the two farmers currently farming oysters raise their seed in the same bottle nursery until they’re big enough to go into the lake. This mutual assistance stands in contrast to the more individualistic culture of wild oyster harvesting, experts interviewed for this story said. 

“That’s been the coolest thing for me is to be able to watch the guys with their own specialties work together to make all of them successful,” Montie said. “It’s really been neat to watch how they’re sharing equipment or they’re going out on boats together and learning from each other.”

Equally, the oystermen say they’re not looking to compete with the traditional oyster harvesting industry, but rather add another, more niche, option to the market. “They’re the Budweiser and we’re the microbrewery,” Sorrells said.

For the Doxeys, the reliability of the farming process and its income potential means a better shot at keeping the family business going for another generation to come. Doxey said his young children have already taken an interest in it, tagging along on boat trips to the farm and maintaining the nursery with him. 

“With this, if you really got your stuff together and you know what you’re doing, you’ve got a good chance of making serious money. It’s life-changing,” Doxey said. “I really do think it’s the future of oystering.” 

Story and photos by Bruce Schultz 

The Leger cattle operation near Port Barre has Japanese genetics by way of Australia and Shreveport.

Brent and his wife, Marcy, raise Wagyu cattle, a breed that originated in Japan. The Leger family sells Wagyu beef products at the Leger Country Market in Washington.

Work is underway to open a store in Lafayette, hopefully by early May. The Leger beef is also sold at the Lafayette Farmer’s Market.

Leger decided to focus more intently on his cattle after he was laid off at a refinery job. He also wanted to produce a healthier, tastier beef and that quest is how he came across Wagyu cattle.

The Legers’ mission statement lays out their approach: “If there’s a theme to the way we operate at Leger’s Country Market, it’s that we care. Care for the herd, care for every part of the process, care about the product, care about the people who work with us and partner with us and care about our customers.”

Brent has raised cattle for 30 years but 2 years ago he sold all his commercial cattle to complete the transition to Wagyu breed.

Leger Country Market offers beef with two levels of Wagyu, depending on the bull-cow combinations. The higher 5/8 Wagyu beef is the result of crossing his Wagyu bull with a cow that’s half Wagyu and half Maine-Anjou, a small French breed. The less expensive 3/8 Wagyu is the result of crossing the bull with cows with a mix of Hereford and Maine-Anjou. But he’s also trying other combinations. For example, he’s crossing Hereford and Red Angus cows with the Wagyu bull.

The mixed calves grow faster than purebred Wagyu so their beef is cheaper than 100% Wagyu but it still offers the advantages in tenderness, taste and health benefits.

The Leger calves are butchered when they reach a weight of 1,500 to 1,700 pounds.

“That’s the sweet spot for the marbling,” he said.

Wagyu beef has found a niche market because of its superior marbling, streaks of fat that makes the meat tender and moist with a  boost in flavor.
 
 “We are 3 to 4 levels above prime,” Leger said.

Leger prefers the natural approach. “I’m not giving them anything to make them grow,” he said.

His refusal to use growth hormones is another reason it takes longer for these calves to reach slaughter weight. He will use probiotics to promote health. He said his calves gain about 1.75 pounds a day, almost half the daily weight gain of most beef cattle.
A 5/8 Wagyu calf needs about 28 months to reach the intended weight, while the 3/8 Wagyu needs half that time, he said. Other cattle breeds, using growth hormones, only require 10 months to reach slaughter weight.

“This is not cheap meat but the higher price is because of the time that we put into them,” he said.

Leger ribeyes sell for $50 a pound. “I can’t keep ribeyes,” he said. “I’m out of ribeyes now.”

Other cuts of meat sold by Leger Country Market cost 20-30 percent more than regular beef, he said, but the Leger ground meat is $7.50 to $8 a pound.

​The Legers’ mixed calves grow faster  than purebred Wagyu calves so their beef is cheaper than 100% Wagyu but it still offers Wagyu advantages in tenderness, taste and health benefits.

In Japan, a top-shelf 100 percent Wagyu steak can cost $300, and a purebred Wagyu cow could sell for $30,000, according to an article in Business Insider magazine.
(Kobe beef is Wagyu grown in Hyōgo, a state in Japan which includes the city of Kobe.)

Purebred Wagyu beef commands a higher price because a Wagyu calf is considerably smaller than a mixed breed, so it doesn’t produce the same amount of meat, and it takes longer for a calf to be ready for slaughter.

Last year, Leger slaughtered 14 calves. The carcasses age for 21 days before butchering by Coastal Plains Meat Co. in Eunice, formerly known as Eunice Superette.

Wagyu beef has benefits beyond its rich, buttery flavor. According to the American Wagyu Association, health experts have discovered the ratio of mono-unsaturated fat to saturated fat in Wagyu beef is higher than other beef, and it’s higher in beneficial Omega fatty acids. And the association says that saturated fat in Wagyu beef doesn’t increase cholesterol as much as regular beef.

Leger, who also drives a school bus, sells his Wagyu products at the Leger Country Market store in downtown Washington at 407 N. Main St., opened in March 2023. He said the business’ customers are from across the state.

The Lafayette store will be at 626 Verot School Road near Fat Pat’s restaurant and sports bar.

But he said he currently sells most of his inventory at the Lafayette farmer’s market at Moncus Park held each Saturday morning. He said they usually run out of product at the farmer’s market, especially beef bacon, ground meat and burritos. He also makes boudin. “The boudin has Wagyu fat that throws a butter flavor in the boudin.”

The Legers sell a wide variety of Wagyu products that includes sausage, tasso and bacon. But the primary products are steaks – Denver steaks (only two can be cut from each calf), flat iron, chuck eye, flank steak, brisket and ribeye.

​Leger wants to increase the herd with 10 more cows, and he’s thinking about breeding the bull with cows developed from a cross of Beefmaster and Red Angus.

Leger’s bull is three quarters Wagyu and one fourth Maine-Anjou. The herd of 14 cows with 10 calves, and two in the feed lot that will be ready for slaughter soon.

Most cattle producers have a defined calving season, so they only allow their bulls to be in the same pasture with cows for just enough time for breeding. But Leger leaves his bull with the cows year-round because he wants a steady, continuous supply of beef for customers.

The herd grazes on 75 acres of clover, Bahia and bermudagrass along with clover. He prefers the heartier bermudagrass, however. The Leger calves are finished on feed.
Because the calves are small from the Wagyu influence are born small – 40-50 pounds - he doesn’t have to watch his cows closely at delivery time.

Leger will sell “freezer calves” to individuals who want to pick out a calf from his inventory. He will raise the calf until it’s ready for slaughter.

Raising cattle has been a lifelong endeavor for Leger. He learned about cattle from his father, Sonny, who had Brown Swiss cattle for meat. 

His daughter, Taylor, handles the accounting and promotional work. His son, Matthew, has been working at the Washington store but he will start managing the new Lafayette store. His wife, Marcy, also helps with the business when she’s not working at her full-time job as a schoolteacher.

Leger obtained his bull and some of his cows from Denny Denison of Keatchie, Louisiana, near Shreveport.

The Leger bull is from semen extracted from an Australian Wagyu bull. “You can’t get any more semen out of Japan,” Leger said.

Denison found a Wagyu breeder in Texas who obtained semen from Australia where the breed is a big industry. Denison started his Wagyu herd about 15 years ago, and he has had Maine-Anjou cattle for most of his 71 years.

He said like Leger, he was on a quest to find high-quality beef and that’s what led him to Wagyu. ”I wanted a bull to provide marbling, not yield.”

Some consumers complain that 100 percent Wagyu is too rich with a high amount of fat-to-muscle ratio. “I try to come up with the best combination of both worlds,” Denison said.
 
His herd of about 400 cows produces around 100 calves for slaughter each year. He waits until calves reach 1,700-1,800 pounds before they’re slaughtered and that usually requires about 30 months.

He is certified as an all-natural producer.

Denison relies on Bahia and Bermudagrass for his pastures.

Maine-Anjou has good marbling characteristics superior to Angus, he said, and the breed has more muscle mass than Angus, he said.

Denison said Maine-Anjou cattle are much easier to handle than Angus. “They’re more docile. Angus are sneaky. They’ll come up on you from behind. Angus bulls are bad for fighting.”

Wagyu bulls are good-natured, and they don’t seem to lose as much weight, Denison said. “Wagyu bulls are really amazing as far as being potent.”

The Japanese Wagyu producers are guarded about their practices, especially their feed rations that might include olive tree branches or chunks of hard candy, Denison said. “They keep that really secret.”

​The Japanese Wagyu are weaned at 3 months and halter broken, he said, compared to most American Wagyu calves that are weaned at 5-6  months.
But he said the beef characteristics begin developing long before the calves are born.

“They start developing marbling in the womb in 3 months.”

He finishes his calves on a special formula of feed that gives the dry-aged beef a unique flavor. ”I have my own secret ration here.”

He said he sells his beef at a Shreveport store, Corks and Cuds, on the South Loop. “I don’t really push it like I should.”

​A good business plan is advisable for anyone about to make the plunge into a venture like Wagyu cattle, said Brittany Zaunbrecher, LSU AgCenter beef cattle and forage extension agent in St. Landry, Evangeline, Avoyelles and Allen parishes.

“They really need to make sure they have a plan to sell it an dhow they’re going to market it,” she said.

The current cattle market is doing well, she said. Part of that upswing is seasonal, but she said the increase is a result of supply-and-demand economics.

“Cattle inventory is at its lowest since the 1960s,” she said. “There are fewer cattle out there from what we’ve seen in the last 50 years.”

Zaunbrecher said this is a good opportunity for cow-calf producers to cull unproductive cows.

Story and photos by Bruce Schultz

The 2024 crawfish crop has been disastrous so far, affecting farmers and businesses that depend heavily on the crustacean, and the impact on the area economy will be significant. 

Normally, crawfish pumps more than a quarter billion dollars into the Louisiana economy but that amount this year will be drastically reduced.

Eric Thomas, a Rayne crawfish dealer, said the market is looking better than the past 2 months. The price has dropped, and more people are eating crawfish.

“The price was $8 a pound and now it’s $4,” he said on March 4 when the price fell by $1. “The industry has never seen prices like this.”

He said the market has limited the number of restaurant customers. “There are only so many eaters at a certain price.”

​But he said the bad publicity about the crawfish market has probably led many consumers to give up on the South Louisiana staple, and that has put a damper on demand. 

“We’re starting to see more and more crawfish being caught,” he said. “In the last 5 to 6 days, things have picked up a lot.”

The market for smaller, peeling crawfish also has been affected. Most of the imported labor for that sector hasn’t been brought into the U.S., Thomas said, so it is affecting Mexican workers who depend on work here.

Thomas, business partner with farmer Russ Cassedy of Crowley, has a seafood restaurant in Crosby, Texas, but he said its business model is based mainly on crawfish. He had several drive-through crawfish businesses in Louisiana, and he opened the Crawfish Hut restaurant in Rayne in 2003.

His wholesale  business has customers in Dallas, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina, but supplying those buyers has been difficult to impossible. 

He said the current volume he is buying now is typical for mid- to late January.
Many farmers are giving up and draining early to plant rice or soybeans, he said, especially in southern Vermilion Parish where salinity has been a problem. 

Thomas said his business usually employs eight workers but now he only has four on the payroll. He only needs one driver so far this year, but he usually has three.

Thomas also has rice acreage. Usually, rice fields only used for one crop of rice will produce crawfish earlier since they are harvested and reflooded earlier, he said, than fields where a ratoon crop (or second crop) is grown. But this year, he said, it made no difference.

Even fields that were planted with rice just for crawfish production have not shown any difference in timing or production, he said.

Thomas is amazed at last summer’s brutal heat. Usually, he said, it takes about 21 days for a field to be drained for harvest. But last year, a field would be dry enough to cut in 6 days.

He said pumps had to run constantly to keep rice fields flooded, costing as much as $10,000 a month per pump for electricity. Rice yields were higher last year, he said, but that was offset by lower quality which brought price penalties.

Thomas recalled a similar downturn in the market. “Last time I saw this was with Icon in 1999.”

The Icon seed treatment insecticide, used against rice water weevils, was blamed for a bad crawfish harvest in 1999, and farmers joined in a class-action lawsuit against the product’s maker, Aventis. The case settled in 2004 during a trial, resulting in a $45 million settlement but plaintiffs received a little more than half that after attorneys’ fees and court costs were paid. The company did not admit doing anything wrong and it blamed the bad crawfish season on drought conditions.

Thomas said he is planning to restock his fields with crawfish from a field that will be left untouched. He expects crawfish from the Atchafalaya Basin will be too expensive for stocking fields when that crop starts producing by late spring. 

Normally, Thomas buys crawfish for resale until July 4.
 
“If we can get to the Fourth of July with mild temperatures, people can make some money.”

Interestingly, Thomas said he knows two farmers in Acadia Parish whose crawfish production has increased over last year. He said they both have fields of about 35 acres and neither stock their fields. Their crawfish is not harvested with boats that leave ruts in the mud, and they have their rice cut in July or August to reflood the fields immediately. “They’re usually the first ones to have crawfish.”

​Todd Fontenot, LSU AgCenter crawfish specialist, said the catch is improving.

“I’m hearing things are a little more encouraging,” he said. ”But we’re still 10 to 15% of a normal supply.”

He said the catch rate is about a sack of crawfish, around 30 pounds, from 20 acres.

He said warmer weather should promote crawfish growth and reproduction, and that should help the crawfish industry recover some losses.

But he said it makes no sense that there are a few fields that are producing well alongside under-performing fields with identical growing conditions. “I can’t explain it. They’re doing everything the same.”

Rice farmers typically covered their costs with rice in the past few years, and they have depended on crawfish for their profit. 

Fontenot said it’s likely that more ponds will be drained early for rice planting. Farmers close to the coastal area are facing the dilemma of high salinity rates, he said, so that could limit the amount of rice planted there. And he’s also hearing that seed stocks for some long-grain rice varieties are in short supply. 

Higher crawfish prices also present another problem for farmers looking ahead to restocking crawfish. The usual rate is 60 pounds of crawfish per acre, Fontenot said. “It’s not good to restock with $2.50 or $3 crawfish because there goes your profit.” 

Farmers are looking at setting aside some fields of crawfish for restocking but that also chips away at potential income for this year.

Mark Shirley,  crawfish specialist with the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant, said the effect of the low catch will be felt throughout South Louisiana which usually benefits from a $300 million economic impact. “I don’t think we’ll get half that this year, but maybe a third.”
He said it’s likely that crawfish boat builders will suffer, along with trap makers, bait dealers along with restaurants and drive-thru operations. And it will hurt business owners who depend on crawfish sales to make loan payments. 

“There’s a lot of debt out there,” he said. “It’s a ripple effect.”

Processing plants have not started peeling because of the high price, he said, and that’s resulted in foreign workers not being called up from Mexico or sent home. “Very likely, very little crawfish will be peeled.”

The high price and lower-than-usual harvest will open the door to foreign crawfish, he said, since the U.S. tariff on imported crawfish has expired. “There are a lot of problems associated when you run out of a product.”

Shirley said it’s likely that the drought and extreme heat at the worst time interfered with the growth and reproduction processes. “It was a double whammy.”

Tony and Jennifer Arceneaux, owners of Hawk’s Restaurant near Roberts Cove, are planning to open March 20, almost 2 months behind his usual start.

“It’s been a crazy year and a crazy season,” Tony said.

He said COVID put a damper on his business, then came the crawfish famine. “We really needed this season to make up for being closed the past 2 seasons.”

​Hawk’s usually  opens late January or early February, whenever the crawfish are the right size and maturity. “I’ve been doing this so long (42 years), I’d rather wait until they are decent.”
But this year, the poor catch and high prices pushed the opening date back. He is seeing signs that the catch and quality is improving. 

“Supply is getting better every day,” he said. "We’re headed in the right direction.”
Arceneaux said his biggest concern now is the effect this is having on his employees. He normally has 22 people working nights and days. The seasonal business helps those workers catch up on bills. “Some employees had to find other work.”

He also sympathizes with farmers. “A lot of these farmers are hurting right now. Those crawfish buy a lot of groceries.”

If the crawfish problem weren’t enough of a challenge, Arceneaux said his expenses have increased in the past 3 years. His mayonnaise used for special crawfish dip has tripled in price in the past 3 years, he said, and he uses 60 gallons a week. “That’s just an extra cost I hadn’t even thought about.”

As the owner of an established business, the Arceneauxs don’t have the heavy debt looming overhead that newer crawfish businesses, such as drive-thru operations, are facing. “It’s a scary thought. I’m glad I’m not in that situation.”

Michael Hundley of Acadia Parish, with a family farm and restaurant, knows first-hand the problems facing both ends of the industry.

He said the catch is improving, but it’s inconsistent. “One day it’s good and then one day it’s bad. The catch is 15 percent of what we usually catch. There are a lot of people not catching anything.”

“I’m hoping and praying we’ll have a reversal of years past,” he said. Usually, the catch starts at high levels and drops off as the season progresses, Hundley said. “Maybe this year it will be the opposite.”

He said the family restaurant, Mo’ Crawfish in the Mowata community, has about  half as many customers as usual. It is only open during crawfish season and this year it was scaled back to Tuesday through Sunday.

“The crowds have gotten better. The restaurant on Fridays is full and people are coming.”

But he said sales are about half of the usual amount.

Hundley realizes that subsidiary businesses are hurting also, such as seasoning sellers and trap makers. “It’s not just us as farmers or a restaurant. It’s everything. It affects the whole community and the whole parish.

The price fell again on March 11, he said, to $3 a pound. He said at $7-8 a pound, he was embarrassed selling for $10 a pound for boiled crawfish.

“The price should have never gone to where it was.”

Farmer Dane Hebert, who grows rice, crawfish, soybeans and sugarcane with his daughter, Laura, in northern Vermilion Parish, said their operation is producing more now. “The catch is slowly picking up and the size is getting better.”

Hebert said they are saving some crawfish for restocking, and it’s likely they will drain some fields early for rice planting.

The price drop didn’t surprise him. “I knew that would happen as soon as there was some kind of volume.” But he said the price may have fallen because consumption – or demand – has not kept up with the meager volume. He said a consumer is likely to pass on more expensive crawfish, “if you can buy a ribeye cheaper.”

The recent declaration of a disaster by Gov. Landry and requests for federal aid probably will help, Hebert said, but that assistance won’t happen soon.

“If we see anything this year, I’d be surprised.”

Hebert said he and Laura work their catch themselves along with local labor.

He said it’s possible they will be near a break even point if the catch continues to improve before Lent. 

He said the uncertainty of the crustacean has been enough to dissuade him from depending on the crustacean as a major income source. “I’ve always used crawfish as lagniappe. I knew better than to bank on it.”

Hebert said this year has provided difficult lessons in economics and biology.

“Crawfish are so dependent on Mother Nature,” Hebert said. “There are a lot of things we don’t know about crawfish.”

Story, photos and recipes by Cynthia Nobles

More than a third of the food we eat comes from crops pollinated by honey bees. That is why Dr. Lanie Bilodeau of the USDA Bee Lab in Baton Rouge works hard to keep our managed bee population healthy.
            
​One of Louisiana’s best kept agricultural research secrets is the USDA’s Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Lab. Just south of the main LSU Campus, the facility’s cluster of buildings are jam-packed with tables of microscopes, shelves of experimental plants, rooms of high-tech machinery such as genetic analyzers and bioreactors, and freezers filled with DNA samples. Scattered around it all are towers and towers of humming bee hives. Beyond the compound lies open fields, where the lab’s bees forage. 

“We have a staff of 24 that includes 7 scientists,” says Bilodeau, the Bee Lab’s Research Leader, and who holds a PhD in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology from UL-Lafayette. The USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has ongoing research in 16 bee research labs around the country, with 6 main labs dedicated specifically to honey bee work. “Ours is the biggest bee lab in the U.S.,” she says. “The Baton Rouge unit has been operational 95 years, and we’ve been in our current location 67 years.”

As we wound through a maze of rooms, we were joined by Kevin Langley, who raises his own bees and does bee rescues and relocations. Langley is also President of the Capital Area Beekeepers Association and Vice-President of the Louisiana Beekeepers Association. These two organizations, as well as the Louisiana Farm Bureau, strongly support Baton Rouge’s Bee Lab. 

“Lots of Louisiana beekeepers raise bees for export to other states and Canada,” Langley said. “I like to keep my stakeholders up-to-date on bee research. The work they do here at the Bee Lab is vital to our industry.”

Langley explained that honey bees alone pollinate 80 percent of all flowering plants, including more than 130 types of fruits and vegetables. Cotton, soybeans, oil seed crops, vegetables, cover crops, forage crops, and several nut varieties depend on bees. “Take the almond,” he said. “Each little nut has to be pollinated by a single bee. Where would that industry be without bees?” 

Cornell University did a study on the value of bees, and concluded that bee pollination contributes more than $18 billion annually to the U.S. economy. According to the FDA, this agriculture benefit is worth 10-20 times the value of the honey and beeswax markets. 

The Baton Rouge Bee Lab plays such an important part in maintaining a robust honey bee economic impact. And the lab’s mission is simple:  To use genetics and honey bee breeding to solve the problems affecting the commercial beekeeping industry. Eradicating the dangers to bee health is more complicated.

It has widely been publicized that the honey bee population is dwindling. “There’s a significant honey bee decline from 20-30 years ago,” Bilodeau says. “Bees used to live 2-3 years in commercial hives. Now they average 6 months.” Even so, the managed bee population is holding steady, thanks to research successes and diligent colony management. Over the past couple of years, however, bee prices have doubled, as well as the food to feed them.

The reasons for bee demise are numerous. Changes in weather patterns have an impact. “Decoupling is a term used to describe what happens when the timing of the colony’s activity and nutritional needs do not match that of a flowering plant,” said Bilodeau. “Lately, some plants are flowering in winter, when bees are not ready to eat.”  

Then there’s what she refers to as the “four P’s,” which are pathogens, poor nutrition, improper use of pesticides, and pests and parasites. 

“A big killer is Varroa mites,” Bilodeau says of the parasite that can wipe out a whole bee colony. “Another devastating physiological threat comes from viruses.”

To help solve these problems, the Bee Lab does research on 3 types of honey bees: European (the most common used for U.S. pollination), and 2 mite-resistant stocks developed by the Baton Rouge USDA Bee Lab (Russian and Pol-line). “Most beekeepers in the U.S. use European bees,” she says,    

Curious as it seems, no honey bees are native to the U.S. “We do have thousands of native bee species in America,” say Bilodeau, “but no true honey bee.”

As we toured the room where artificial insemination on bee queens is performed, Bilodeau got technical. “We focus on bee genetics and general biology,” she said. “We look for ways to improve insecticide resistance and adaptation to artificial diets. We experiment with toxicology, virus resistance, and aggression. We closely study the molecular biology of our bees. Small genome changes happen quickly. Mutations can change everything in the next generation.” 

Langley put this research into plain terms: “They’re developing lines and stocks of honey bees with improved survivorship. We need bees that are disease resistant, resilient, and productive.”
 
Through the doors along a maze of hallways I could see that lab staff was busy as, well, bees. In one room we ran into Biological Research Technician Elisabeth Pigott, who was concentrating on pipetting liquid into a tray. We walked into another room where award-winning Research Scientist Vincent Ricigliano was working on bee genetics, mutation, pathogens, and vaccines.

“I think mites are a bee’s biggest threat,” Ricigliano said, as he showed me two of his experiments. He pointed out a tray of tall, large vials full of a deep green liquid. “This is microalgae. There’s no viable treatment option for viruses, and I’m experimenting with an edible option.”

He then opened a door to a tray of foot-high sunflower plants. “If things work out like I want, bees can feed on these sunflowers and get their vaccinations.”

Bilodeau’s research team keeps having scientific advances, and her outreach keeps expanding.  In addition to continued work with LSU faculty and graduate students, over the last year-and-a-half her unit has collaborated with Baton Rouge’s Southern University, working with faculty and a student on bees and urban forestry. She also hopes to begin work with the Southern researchers on bee resilience in urban environments. 

All this research requires elbow-room, something the current lab facility lacks. “We’re conducting state-of-the art research in very old facilities,” says Bilodeau. “We’ve outgrown our space and are hoping for a budget increase next year. We are in the process of leasing land on the Southern University Campus and hope to build a 51,000-square-foot facility. All we’re waiting on is congressional funding.”  

While Lanie Bilodeau waits for Congress to act, she and her researchers will continue to work to save our commercial bees. Their diligence is crucial to beekeepers like Kevin Langley, as well as to farmers, whose crops directly or indirectly rely on these remarkable insects.
 

 
Do you have a Louisiana agriculture story or a recipe you’d like to share? Contact me at [email protected].
 
Cynthia Nobles is the cookbook editor for LSU Press and the author/co-author of several historical cookbooks, including A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook, The Delta Queen Cookbook, and The Fonville Winans Cookbook.
 
 
 
 
Honey Roasted Pecans
Makes 1 pound
 
1 pound pecan halves
2 tablespoons butter
⅓ cup honey
¼ teaspoon salt, divided
 
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a sheet pan or cookie sheet with parchment paper or heavy-duty foil. Place pecans in a large bowl and set aside.
2. Melt butter in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in honey. Pour honey mixture over pecans and mix thoroughly, so that nuts are completely coated.
3. Spread honey-coated nuts in a single layer in the prepared pan. Sprinkle with half the salt and bake 7 minutes. Turn pecans over with a spatula, sprinkle with remaining salt, and bake 9 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely on the sheet pan. Store in an airtight container up to a week.
 
 
Honey and Coconut Cookies
Makes 3 dozen
 
1 stick butter
¾ cup honey
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups shredded coconut
 
1. In a saucepan, melt butter. Remove pan from heat and thoroughly stir in honey. Transfer mixture to a large bowl and refrigerate 15-30 minutes.
2. When ready to bake, place a rack in the upper half of your oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. To the honey mixture, stir in the egg, vanilla, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour and stir until combined. Stir in the coconut.
3. Drop batter by the tablespoon 2 inches apart on the prepared pan. (Do not refrigerate dough between batches.) Bake until bottoms are evenly brown, 11-15 minutes. Cool a few minutes on the baking sheet, then cool completely on a rack. Keeps fresh up to 3 days.
 
 
Old World Whole Grain Bread
Makes 1 loaf. Recipe is by Ann Darphin Jennings of Baton Rouge.
 
Whole wheat, oats, flax, and honey combine to make a nutritious, tender loaf reminiscent of the sturdier loaves common in Europe centuries ago.
 
3½ cups whole wheat flour, divided
1½ cups warm water, divided
¼ cup wheat bran
¼ cup steel cut oats
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup honey
4½ teaspoons yeast
¼ cup flax meal (or grind your own whole flax seeds)
1½ teaspoons salt
 
1. In a medium bowl, combine 1 cup flour, 1 cup warm water, bran, and oats. Cover and let stand 1 hour.
2. In the bowl of a standing mixer, add remaining ½ cup warm water, olive oil, honey, and yeast and let stand 5 minutes.
3. Add bran mixture to yeast mixture, along with remaining 2½ cups flour, flax meal, and salt. Using a bread hook, mix on low speed 7 minutes. Form dough into a ball, place in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1½ hours.
4. Grease a 9-inch loaf pan. Punch dough down and remove from bowl. Knead lightly and shape dough into a loaf. Place in the prepared pan, cover lightly with a clean dish towel, and let rise until bread reaches about 1 inch above pan rim, about 30 minutes.
5. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Bake bread until dark brown, about 30-35 minutes. Remove from pan immediately and allow to cool at least 30 minutes before slicing.
 
 
Honey Hot Toddy
Makes 1 drink
 
I’m not sure if this popular concoction really cures colds, but it does warm you up on a chilly night.
 
½ cup water
1 tablespoon honey
2-3 tablespoons whiskey
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 lemon slice
1 stick cinnamon
 
Bring water to a boil in a small pot and remove from heat. Add honey and stir until dissolved. Pour honey mixture into a small mug and stir in whiskey and lemon juice. Garnish with lemon slice and cinnamon. Serve immediately.