Louisiana Farm & Ranch

05/06/2025

GALLIANO— Aaron Guidroz, his wife Kristina, and their son Lane all pitch in to run one of our state’s largest mail-order breeding quail and quail hatching egg businesses – one that was built from ground up twice.

Galliano is a small community along southeast Louisiana’s Bayou Lafourche, and for 15 years Aaron had only sold quail from there to friends and relatives. Then, in the middle of the covid lockdown, he decided to make his hobby a bigger part of his full-time profession.

First, he had to buy some land.

Read more here: https://www.lafarmandranch.com/bites-of-louisiana

05/05/2025

MERMENTAU– 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, Louisiana, 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.

Read more here: https://www.lafarmandranch.com/feature-stories1/louisiana-farmers-and-their-rice-stand-strong-in-the-face-of-uncertainty

04/23/2025

Cattleman’s Columbus Livestock Auction is having a Special Female and Bull Replacement Sale on Saturday, May 3rd at Noon. Follow their page Cattleman's Columbus Livestock Auction for more sale information 🐂

03/21/2025

CROWLEY— 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.”

Read more here:
https://www.lafarmandranch.com/feature-stories1/farmers-experts-predict-a-strong-crawfish-season-despite-extreme-temperatures

09/13/2024

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.

Read more here: https://www.lafarmandranch.com/feature-stories1/rainy-weather-spells-new-challenges-for-rice-farmers-after-last-years-historic-drought

08/06/2024

CAMERON PARISH – 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.

🦪 To continue reading, visit our website:
https://www.lafarmandranch.com/feature-stories1/long-known-for-its-wild-reefs-calcasieu-lake-now-produces-its-first-farmed-oysters

04/04/2024

Beautiful weather for picking CM Farms’ Louisiana strawberries! 🍓

🍓🍓🍓 Did someone say STRAWBERRIES? Good news, y'all! Our u-pick fields are officially opening this Saturday.. just in time for the kick off of our Strawberry Fest!

Some things to know before this weekend!
-We will have tons of strawberry themed food and dessert available
-Farm attractions will be open for exploring
-Strawberry Fest will run April 6, 7, 13, 14
-We will have a special event- Wool Days April 13 & 14
-U-pick is on a first come, first serve basis
-A 1 gallon strawberry souvenir bucket purchase is required to enter u-pick fields
-Pre-picked strawberries will be available to purchase in the Country Store

Learn more: cmfarmsllc.com

04/04/2024

Easter Sunday on the Heinen farm in Hathaway, LA!

03/27/2024

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.”

🦞 To continue reading our latest feature story, "The 2024 Crawfish Crop: A Record-Setting Season for All the Wrong Reasons", click here: https://www.lafarmandranch.com/feature-stories1/the-2024-crawfish-crop-a-record-setting-season-for-all-the-wrong-reasons

02/27/2024

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.

🐝To continue reading, visit our website:
https://www.lafarmandranch.com/feature-stories1/louisianas-usda-honey-bee-lab-keeping-our-bee-industry-humming

11/27/2023

When Mark Guidry (“Guidry”) and his business partners sold their oilfield casing business of 35 years, Guidry finally had the time to bring his long time dream of farming to life.

Decades earlier, he told his pharmacist father, now 95, “I’ll own an organic farm one day.” The notion of producing food always intrigued him and turns out, it was in his blood–though it skipped a few generations. His great grandfather, Dominique Guidry owned farmland which was eventually sold and developed.

For the full story on Guidry Organic Farms, click here:
https://www.lafarmandranch.com/feature-stories1/guidry-organic-farms-from-the-oilfield-to-the-field-of-dreams

11/13/2023

LAFAYETTE – At peak hours, there is almost always a line waiting out the door of the new location of Scratch Farm Kitchen, a laid-back breakfast and lunch restaurant in the middle of Lafayette. Scratch is known for its fresh, “from-scratch” casual dishes made from locally-grown ingredients. The menu also includes an interesting variety of coffees, lemonades, teas, beer, seasonal cocktails, and natural and organic wines. Many Acadiana diners claim it’s their favorite place to eat, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

Scratch is owned and operated by Jamie Harson, who, at the age of 30, moved from Oregon to what was once her great-grandfather’s 18-acre farm in Duson. Harson, who was featured in a 2016 Farm & Ranch article, jumped headlong into farm life by raising chickens, meat birds, goats, and some 300 pigs.

“So much has changed since then,” says Harson. “I began farming because I care about the quality of my food. But raising animals is hard work. So, I sold most of my livestock and veered off into the restaurant business.”

To continue reading, click here:
https://www.lafarmandranch.com/bites-of-louisiana

Scratch owner Jamie Harson standing in front of persimmon tree mural painted by local artist Ben Koch. Photo by Cynthia Nobles.