Delaware farm families plan for succession as land values rises
October 7, 2026
TOWNSEND – Bill Powers has been talking to his lawyer more often these days. After 50 years of farming, he’s amending his will and trust for the future farmer of the land.
“What my wife and I would like to do is give it to the next generation,” Powers said, noting that his son, Will manages the farm with him. He’s seen families sell the land and eventually run out of money; he hopes his family can avoid that. “You can only live off the interest. And next thing they don’t have any money.”
The livestock farmer in Townsend said there’s more money to keep and farming the property than selling it. He’s wary about selling the land, as he and his wife worked for years to pay off its debt. And he’s weathered hard times before when, for example, a grain embargo cut his corn prices early in his career and a lender cut him off decades ago.
“I don’t want to go through that stress again,” he said.
He’s revisiting the idea of a trust and working with an attorney to get it right for his son and daughter. A nearby family farm was left in trust to five children, and now their children can’t agree on a direction. He doesn’t want his family stuck in the same bind.
The Powers family isn’t alone. As housing development drives up the value of Delaware farmland, keeping a farm in the family is getting harder. The average age of a Delaware farmer is 59 years old and 39% of farmers in the First State are at least 65 years old, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture released two years ago.
The state lost around 6% of its farmland to development between 2001 and 2016, the fourth-highest rate in the country, according to American Farmland Trust figures cited by the Delaware Department of Agriculture. There are new programs to help start the next generation of farmers, such as a new loan with a 30-year no-interest loan to cover the price of land.
But even with help, passing a farm down means two questions need to be answered: who will run it and who will own it.
Curt Fifer, a fourth-generation farmer who owns Fifer’s Orchards in Wyoming, said the shrinking supply of farmland is driven less by the younger generation’s lack of interest in farming and more by economics. For example, selling a farm at $50,000 per acre would far exceed what an acre of corn or soybeans would earn. A solar lease to use the farm for a solar farm would pay “above what you could ever dream of farming it,” he said.
Passing the farm to the next generation has always been a problem as families multiply, Fifer said, and Delaware’s unique housing development pressures are a new wrinkle.
“There’s just no easy answer to it,” he said. The farm has grown fruit since its first generation and sold it wholesale. As larger regions made fruit harder to compete in, it added vegetables, and over the last 15 to 20 years a cousin who returned to the farm built out its agritourism business.
Fifer’s Orchards successfully transitioned from the third to fourth generation through a buy-sell agreement. When members wanted to leave, they sold their share. But Fifer said the real worry is handing it off to the fifth generation, which have even more family members than his generation.
“It’s highly unlikely even half will come back and you have to think about compensating those who are going to be off the farm for the investment in the land [and] equipment. It’s essentially buying the farm all over again,” he said.
The Fifer family has hired a family business consultant to help navigate the process which will start later this year. It’s the second attempt with a professional firm to help build a succession plan. Fifer’s hope is that family members who don’t farm will stay on as owners and collect rent, keeping the land in the family and sparing everyone a buyout.
“You just have to take it one day at a time and see who’s coming back and try and plan the best you can,” Curt Fifer said. “This is not just a problem with farms. It’s a problem with any type of business with the next generation.”
Others like the Bennett family have settled the question. Jim Bennett, the patriarch of Bennett Orchards in Frankford, said he has settled diving up the land itself between two sons, Henry and Hail. But he acknowledges that the plan can still be fluid, depending on the next generation.
“When I’m no longer here, each son will have a piece of ground, and if they want to work together, they have enough to do it,” he said. Bennett Orchards is one of Delaware’s few working orchards, a family-run farm that grows and sells blueberries and peaches.
Each summer, the orchard welcomes visitors to pick their own fruit at its U-Pick, giving residents a rare chance to harvest fresh produce close to home. Not far from the Delaware beaches also means the orchards have a steady stream of customers that a more remote farm that does not sell a niche product may not have.
Jim Bennett also pointed out that programs like Delaware’s aglands preservation also help retain the land as a farm while cutting down on some taxes. In exchange for a 10-year agreement to keep it agriculture use, the property owner may be exempt from county and school taxes. But it may not be enough to make a farm profitable compared to selling the land outright.
“Everyone’s situation is different. The big thing lingering over all this is that agriculture can’t compete with development. You have to have the next generation have the passion to continue what you’re doing – and make a living out of it,” he said.
