Kyle Peveto

Long before C. Greg Lutz became a trusted source on crawfish farming and international aquaculture, he was a bored kid playing with “crawdads.”

When his father fished at rivers and creeks around their home of Dayton, Ohio, Lutz would tag along and explore the waterways in search of crawfish.

“I would just turn over the rocks and look for any of them that were small enough to pick up without drawing blood,” he remembered.

For more than three decades, Lutz has served as the state aquaculture specialist for the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant, providing education and technical support for aquaculture producers and pond owners, leading classes, answering questions and researching solutions. He works closely with crawfish producers, assisting the farmers who have grown the business from a local delicacy into a $250 million industry.

“There’s no doubt that Louisiana crawfish producers have benefited greatly from his working knowledge,” said J.B. Hanks, a crawfish producer from St. Landry Parish who first met Lutz more than 30 years ago.

After first encountering crawfish along those Ohio streams, Lutz thought little about the freshwater crustaceans until his senior year as a biology major at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. For a senior project, he was assigned to write about an animal on the sprawling campus. Lutz wandered the grounds in search of a topic and saw a little stream.

“I was like, ‘Ooh, I bet there are crawdads in there,’” he said.

At that point, Lutz had not developed much of a career plan. Then, he knew he “was either going to be a musician or work with crawfish,” he said.

Why did crawfish catch his imagination and lead him to dedicate his career to aquaculture? They were fascinating.

“I think it was just some of the partic­ular aspects of their biology and their life history — the way they grow and the way the females carry their eggs and the babies hatch off,” Lutz said.

Following his passion

Determined to follow his interest, Lutz wrote letters to the handful of university crawfish research programs he could find. The most promising reply came from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now known as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Lutz moved to south Louisiana and worked in the USL crawfish research program while earning money harvesting crawfish in the mornings on a farm in Jeanerette.

After that crawfish season, Lutz worked in the oil fields to get by before entering graduate school at LSU. He earned his master’s degree in fisheries and a doctorate in wildlife and fisheries science.

Nearing the completion of his doctorate, Lutz began wondering about his future — for the first time, he said. Until then, Lutz had followed his interests. “If a door opened, I walked through it,” he said.

As a student worker mailing newsletters for the World Aquaculture Society, which was based at LSU at the time, he saw a job posting for a New York-based company seeking to build a catfish farm in Louisiana. He applied and was hired. Over nearly four years, Lutz helped design, construct and manage a 1,200-acre farm near Lebeau.

The Louisiana catfish farming industry faltered after that because of changes in feed prices, and the company sold the farm, which was converted into crawfish ponds. That experience provided Lutz with a practical education in the business of aquaculture.

Assisting producers

In 1991, Lutz joined the AgCenter as the state aquaculture specialist, a role focused on education and technical support for aquaculture producers. At first, he found many producers — especially crawfish farmers — had years of experience and were wary of taking advice from someone new.

“You have to really work hard and look at each individual’s personality and try to figure out, ‘How do I get this message across?’” Lutz said. “It was a real challenge, but over the years, I learned a lot about people, and I know when you connect with someone and get them to see what the problem is and get them to begin correcting it, it’s so rewarding.”

When Eric Searcy started crawfish farming in West Baton Rouge Parish 17 years ago, he thought he had learned all he needed from other farmers. After a few years of shrinking production and crawfish dying soon after harvest, Searcy sought help and connected with Lutz. The specialist walked him through the possible causes and taught him to take oxygen readings from his ponds.

“Every single season, it seems like there’s a new issue that pops up that I’ve never seen before and never dealt with,” Searcy said. “Literally, I have Dr. Lutz on speed dial. I’m constantly calling him.”

Throughout his extension career, Lutz has conducted research to answer the basic questions for Louisiana producers. In the 1990s, many Louisiana producers wanted to tap into the growing tilapia market. Lutz taught himself a bit of economic theory so he could understand the market and present the costs and benefits. After his help analyzing the situation, most producers chose not to invest.

“A lot of these guys needed those kinds of research results to make informed decisions,” Lutz said.

Aquaculture professionals across the state valued his consultation, and Lutz believes he helped them save time and money. That instance displays the importance of the extension education model of the LSU AgCenter, which relies on impartial, research-based information.

“We’re not selling anything,” Lutz said. “We’re just providing support.”

After the prolonged drought of 2022 and 2023, Hanks, who also serves on an agricultural commodity board at the Louisiana Farm Bureau, sought Lutz’s help in getting assistance for crawfish producers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They weren’t eligible for most of the drought assistance, but other funding was available if they could prove crawfish suffered in extreme heat. Lutz scoured the scientific literature to build a case that the excessive heat affected the crawfish during their reproductive phase when they burrowed in the ground. In the end, crawfish producers received about $190 million to help recover from the drought.

“When you’re flying into some big unknowns, you go to people with research expertise,” Hanks said of his decision to reach out to Lutz for help.

Throughout his career, Lutz has provided advice and education to aquaculture producers around the world. His forays into foreign relations began in college, when he minored in Spanish, and at 19, he spent a semester in Mexico, where he put his keyboard skills to use with a local band, Evolución, and developed friendships that lasted for years.

“I learned a lot of Spanish, and I learned a lot about people,” Lutz said. “I learned a little bit about music, too.”

He began international consulting work while working in the commercial aquaculture industry, and after joining the AgCenter, the chancellor asked him to help with farmers in Ukraine. After Hurricane Mitch struck Central America in 1998, Lutz assisted Honduran aquaculture producers in reviving their industry. The AgCenter International Programs unit regularly sent him to help in Central and South America, and he still helps when he can if there is no conflict of interest with Louisiana producers.

Lutz also is a prolific writer. In 2001, he published “Practical Genetics for Aquaculture,” a book for nonscientists interested in genetics. He has served as editor in chief for two international aquaculture magazines and writes a column, the Lutz Report, for The Fish Site, an aquaculture news site.

“What I enjoy the most is that I am constantly learning,” he said. “When I have to edit an article about something I’m not all that familiar with, it’s an opportunity to expand my horizons and learn new things.”

At home, Lutz is surrounded by other students. His wife, Cecilia, is working on a degree in environmental science, and his daughter is a freshman at LSU. He has another son and daughter, who are both in their 30s, and Cecilia’s two children are also pursuing degrees at LSU.

Questions left to answer

After decades of helping Louisianans earn a living in aquaculture, Lutz has witnessed crawfish farming mature and spread beyond Louisiana. He sees there is more work to be done and more to learn.

“Even if I won the lottery tomorrow, I think I would keep doing this,” Lutz said.

More questions are begging to be answered about crawfish. Why do some ponds have higher fertilization rates than others? What vegetation best nourishes crawfish in crawfish-only production ponds? Lutz looks forward to strengthening the LSU AgCenter aquaculture program to continue seeking answers.

“I don’t think I’ll be famous, and I don’t think anyone’s going to name a building after me,” Lutz said, “but I can feel good that Louisiana aquaculture is better off because I found my way down here and the AgCenter took me in.”

Kyle Peveto is the editor of Louisiana Agriculture.

This article appears in the fall 2025 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.

For more than three decades, Greg Lutz has served as the state aquaculture specialist for the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant, providing education and technical support for aquaculture producers and pond owners, leading classes, answering questions and researching solutions. Photo by Kyle Peveto

Greg Lutz regularly teaches children about aquaculture at AgMagic, the annual educational exhibit produced by the LSU AgCenter. Photo by Olivia McClure