Obstacles to shipping grain out of the Port of New Orleans because of damages from Hurricane Katrina remain a hindrance for farmers, but encouraging signs emerged Sept. 7.

At present, hundreds of Louisiana cattlemen and thousands of cattle need help. Find out how to help and what to donate.

Louisiana’s fisheries resources affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita will benefit from fisheries restoration funding in the 2006 Federal Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, according to state officials.

A year after being ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, southeast Louisiana’s commercial and recreational fishing industries are still in the rebuilding stages – and the pace of progress is dramatically different for each of them.

Will the South American rice leaf miner be affected by salt water pushed ashore by Hurricane Rita? LSU AgCenter entomologist Dr. Boris Castro said it’s possible the rice pest’s population could have been weakened by the high salinity, but there’s no way of knowing yet.

With most of the citrus groves in Plaquemines Parish destroyed by last fall’s hurricanes, growers in the Lafourche-Terrebonne area are preparing to fill part of that market niche.

South Louisiana rice fields contaminated with salt from Hurricane Rita’s storm surge have shown some improvements, although not as much as expected, and salinity levels actually have increased in some sugarcane fields.

Hurricane Rita destroyed homes, schools and barns when it ripped through Cameron Parish last fall. It also bruised and battered the hopes of hundreds of 4-H’ers looking forward to showing livestock.

Hurricanes Rita and Katrina were not good for the already struggling Louisiana sugarcane industry, but the storms did not do as much damage as growers first anticipated. (TV News 12/12/05. Runtime: 1 minute 25 seconds)

The sound of rain falling Wednesday night (Dec. 14) was sweet as a symphony to Gary Wicke, an LSU AgCenter county agent in Cameron Parish. Reducing salt contamination in the marsh from Hurricane Rita will improve chances for cattle forage to regrow. The sooner that happens, the better, Wicke said.