The Census of Agriculture is the most complete account of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them. Every Thursday USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will highlight new Census data and the power of the information to shape the future of American agriculture.
The New Year is upon us and we are resuming our Census of Agriculture profile blog series. It’s fitting that Delaware is profiled first in 2015, because Delaware’s nickname is “The First State” because it was the first of the 13 original states to ratify the United States Constitution on December 7, 1787.
Although Delaware is the 2nd smallest state in the nation, its value of agricultural production exceeds that of 10 larger states. According to the 2012 Census of Agriculture, Delaware had 2,451 farms which produced $1.3 billion in agricultural sales. That works out to an average of $520,000 per farm and ranks Delaware #2 in the nation behind California in per farm sales! Delaware ranks #1 nationally in the value of agricultural sales per farmland acre at $2,505 and also for lima bean production.
Agricultural sales in Delaware are skewed towards poultry, specifically meat chickens which are called broilers. Broiler production annually accounts for about 70 percent of Delaware’s value of agricultural production. Delaware produces about 215 million broilers each year which equates to approximately 1.5 billion pounds of chicken. Mrs. Wilmer Steele of Sussex County, Delaware, is often cited as the pioneer of the commercial broiler industry. In 1923, she raised a flock of 500 chicks intended to be sold for meat. Her little business was so profitable that, by 1926, Mrs. Steele was able to build a broiler house with a capacity of 10,000 birds. Sussex County Delaware is today, the largest broiler producing county in the United States. Even Delaware’s annual harvest of over 350,000 acres of corn and soybeans is not enough to feed the state’s broiler population.
Delaware farmers ensure that our state’s residents and beach visitors have access to fresh, locally-grown fruits and vegetables. Annually, more than $4 million in sales are made directly to consumers from our 26 state-sponsored farmers markets and numerous farm-stands. Keeping an eye to the future, 40 percent of Delaware’s total land, or 508,000 acres, are in farms and of those, more than 115,000 acres have been permanently preserved by the state for agricultural-only use.
With history such as Mrs. Steele’s start of the broiler industry, Delaware has a strong agricultural heritage. Farmland preservation, broiler production and direct-to-consumer marketing give Delaware agriculture a strong future.
