August 18, 2020 — COVID-19 has impacted agriculture around the country, and that extends to U.S. shrimp fisheries, which are largely located along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. With restaurants and hotels closed around the country the demand for shrimp is way, way down, leading to fears that the price of shrimp will collapse. To help offset this, the U.S. government has stepped in and announced it will be buying $30 million worth of U.S.-harvested shrimp.
As reported by the Associated Press (with a hat-tip to Modern Farmer for alerting us to the story), the massive shrimp buy is the result of lobbying from both Louisiana and Mississippi, two states that produce shrimp and stand to be impacted by COVID-related factors. In a press release Mississippi’s two U.S. senators and one of its house members stated that they had sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in May, asking that the USDA purchase shrimp (thus propping up the industry) and distribute that same shrimp to people being impacted by the pandemic.