FERRIDAY — District 21 Rep. Andy Anders knows the upcoming legislative session is going to be a fight.

That’s because oil royalties are down considerably, and the budget for last year was projected at a cost of $83 per barrel of oil, Anders said.

The price of oil currently sits at approximately $50 a barrel.

Anders was the speaker at Thursday’s meeting of the Ferriday Rotary Club, and he addressed a number of issues the state will face in the coming legislative session, which starts April 27.

“We are so dependent on one resource,” Anders said, referring to oil royalties revenue. “When you have all of your chickens in one basket, these kinds of things happen.”

The big fight in the legislature will be separating what Anders called “the wants and the needs” of different regions.

“What you want and what you need are different things in Baton Rouge,” he said.

One area Anders said he is going to work hard to try to help is the agriculture sector, and he said the Department of Agriculture and Forestry has taken significant cuts in recent months.

Anders is the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

To date, the state has spent approximately $163 million on the boll weevil eradication program, and it is very close to being complete, Anders said.

“The governor is talking about cutting $3 million from that program,” he said. “We are within 365 days of eradicating the boll weevil, but none of the city people even know what a boll weevil is. If we don’t get rid of the boll weevil, we will never be able to grow cotton here.”

Likewise, Anders said the state was going to have to find funding sources for research facilities, like the LSU Agcenter, that do not generate their own funds.

“A banker is going to tell you that they can’t afford to just let a farmer try a certain seed for a year, and that’s why we need research,” Anders said. “If we aren’t productive in the research, we will never get anywhere in the state of Louisiana.”

Another issue that is expected to garner a lot of attention is a proposal to allow students who meet certain qualifications to carry concealed handguns on college campuses, Anders said.

“Where that gets debatable is that the police show up at a place, and you have two good guys and a bad guy, and they all have guns,” he said.

He also talked to the administrations of several colleges about the issue, Anders said.

“None of them supported it,” he said.

Funding issues and debatable legislation aside, Anders said the legislature will try its best.

“We are going to make it through it,” he said. “It is going to be hard, but we will make it.”