Voters in five parishes will have the chance to participate in a rare election this Saturday (June 14) when a farmer and a fisherman face off for a seat on a board that supports the local use and protection of land and water.
Supervisory seats on the board of the Crescent Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), a partially state-funded body that works as a liaison between farmers and the government, have never been contested.
Incumbent Erica Johnson is an urban farmer based in New Orleans. Appointed to the board in 2022 after six months of attending meetings, she was the first Black member, eventually serving as treasurer. Johnson now faces Lloyd Landry IV, who grew up fishing along the Louisiana coastline and owns a fishing boat charter company.
The election was called by the board after Landry expressed interest in running for an open position. Erica’s incumbent term ended in late May. Saturday’s election is the first of its kind in the Crescent District and the seventh in the state across 44 total districts.
The board is holding the election while Johnson is on maternity leave. At the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday (June 11), she held her 8-week-old daughter while speaking to an audience of local Democratic Party officials.
Johnson called the close timing of the election and her daughter’s birth “the perfect storm,” in an interview with Verite News.
Polling locations will be open Saturday from 8 a.m to 6 p.m. in Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles — only three of the five total parishes represented by the board. Each location will have 300 paper ballots total due to limited resources. There will be no early or absentee voting.
Johnson said running her urban farm Petit Jardin helps inform her work on the Crescent SWCD board.
“I am a producer and a farmer in New Orleans first,” she said. “Owning and operating Petit Jardin puts me at the ground level because I experience what other farmers experience.”
At a virtual voter forum hosted by the advocacy group New Orleans Food Policy Council (FPAC) on Thursday night, Landry emphasized protecting the district’s coastline and marshes while Johnson focused on increasing resources for urban farmers, who she said would lose board representation if she is not reelected.
Both candidates said the board could improve transparency and better raise community awareness of Crescent SWCD projects.
Johnson said a lack of information on resources and conservation poses one of the greatest threats to the district. “What people do not know they cannot implement, and what people do not have they cannot enact,” she said. “Farmers are stewards of the land. Their livelihood and legacy depends on being good conservationists by nature.”
Landry spoke about seeing the state’s coastline erode over the course of his lifetime.
“I would really like to see more emphasis on shoreline protection and coastal restoration,” he said. “That’s one of the biggest things that I’ve watched wash away over the last 28 years of my career…hunting and fishing in our local marshes.”
Landry said he hopes to cooperate with fossil fuel companies on the issue of environmental protection.
“It sounds good to try and go green completely…but without the oil and gas, our livelihoods, our economy, nothing would run,” he said in an interview with Verite News after the forum.
FPAC’s statewide director Margee Green said two of the biggest food-related issues facing Louisianians are food access and food production.
“We both don’t have enough fresh healthy food getting to Louisianans, and we don’t grow or produce enough of that fresh healthy food in our state,” she said.
Green said Saturday’s historic election is an example of a healthy democracy on the local scale.
“This is a role where the folks who are running for it are producers,” she said. “I would like people to feel that they can see themselves in the policy that governs their daily life, so much so that they feel empowered to go run for something across the political spectrum.”
The winner of Saturday’s election will serve as a supervisor on the Crescent SWCD board for a three-year term, working as a liaison between community farmers and the state government on agricultural and conservation issues.
Polling locations:
Orleans Parish
Mid-City: New Harmony High School, 3368 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans East: Crown of Life Lutheran Church, 11721 Morrison Rd.
Marigny/Bywater: Press St Gallery, 5 Homer Plessy Way
Jefferson Parish
Jefferson Feed Store: 4421 Jefferson Hwy., Jefferson
Jefferson Feed Store: 2949 Veterans Blvd., Metairie
St. Charles Parish
Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3750: 140 Angus Dr., Luling
Knights of Columbus Home: 375 Spruce St., Norco
Alan Arterbury Building: 14564 River Rd., New Sarpy
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