Wearing thigh-high rubber boots, David wades into a pond on his Louisiana property and pulls up a wire trap holding what passes for treasure in the Bayou: crawfish.
David, his wife Sharon, and their son Ethan have operated E&L Bieber Farms in Acadia Parish for more than a decade. Their family business thrives on the natural connection between rice and crawfish—crawfish feed on the rice stubble left after harvest. Today, E&L Bieber Farms currently produces about one million pounds of fresh crawfish annually, sold in regional grocery stores. The farm also grows nine million pounds of rice each year and includes a full processing facility for both.
“Crawfish and rice are really all you can raise here,” says David, a Louisiana native. “It’s authentic to our culture and our Cajun background. Everybody here eats it.”
The 2,000-acre Bieber Farm traces its roots to 1906, when David’s grandfather Henry emigrated from Germany. For many years the farm raised rice and cattle and has for all those years served as the homestead for the extended Bieber family.
Though devoted to Louisiana, David didn’t always envision a future in farming. After working on the farm through high school, he earned a geology degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and spent 34 years as a petroleum geologist determining the best places to drill and extract fossil fuels. But industry shifts and tightening regulations eventually led him back to his roots.
While crawfish and rice have provided a steady income for the Biebers, the farm is preparing for another evolution. A significant portion of the farm is committed to being part of EB Heirs Solar, a proposed solar project being developed by LRE anticipated to begin operating in 2030. With the solar project, the Biebers will continue to farm a smaller portion of the land, and David says he plans to purchase additional property in the area to continue the Bieber farming tradition.
“We’re thinking ahead,” David says. “Crawfish and rice have been very good to us, but we’re ready for the next step.” That step, he adds. is centered on family.
“We want to see our two grandchildren grow up and we want to support our son Ethan’s passion for farming. The solar farm will give us a steady income for years and help us do both.
“We value life, and we have deep roots in Louisiana,” he says. “Our focus may shift, but we’re not going anywhere.”
LRE (Leeward Renewable Energy) is a high-growth renewable energy company forging a sustainable future through integrity, innovation, and positive impact. We own and operate 30 large wind, solar, and energy storage projects across the United States, totaling over 3 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity.
LRE has an ambitious goal of 10GW of operating assets by 2028 and is developing and contracting an increasing pipeline of new projects every year. We take a full-lifecycle approach to our projects, built on a long-term ownership model and a company culture dedicated to our community partners and protecting the environment. LRE is a portfolio company of OMERS Infrastructure, an investment arm of OMERS, one of the largest defined pension plans in Canada, with C$128.6 billion in net assets (as of Dec 31, 2023). For more information, visit www.lreus.com.
