Farming on a maybe: Delaware growers struggle to turn harvests into sales
October 5, 2026
LAUREL — A Delaware watermelon may travel hundreds of miles to a grocery store; another may never leave the field. The difference can come down to finding a buyer and covering the cost of delivery.
At the Laurel Farmers’ Auction Market, a truckload of watermelons can move from the farmer’s hand to a buyer along the East Coast through brokers while a few boxes of peppers or squash may have a much less certain destination.
Julie Howard, who runs the market, told the Delaware Business Times that seven brokers handle the commercial watermelon business at the site. Farmers selling cucumbers, peppers, squash and other produce through the auction have no comparable network. They depend on buyers coming to Laurel for stores, produce stands, personal canning and other uses.
“It’s almost impossible to get your product where it needs to go when there’s no middle person to get it there for you,” Howard said.
Farmers across Delaware use processing contracts, wholesale buyers, auctions and other delivery options to get crops to their next sale. But each of these options depends on finding a buyer, moving the harvest while it is still sellable and earning enough to cover the costs. When one of those pieces falls through, a crop can be difficult to sell even when there is plenty.
The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 2,158 Delaware farms. Sales of vegetables, melons, potatoes and sweet potatoes totaled about $93 million that year with outlets like the Laurel Farmers Market Auction fielding some of those sales every year.
At the time of her interview in September, Howard tallied tickets representing approximately 226 million pounds of watermelons moving through the auction since early July with several weeks of the season remaining. That volume depends, in part, on the brokers, though having them does not guarantee growers a profitable price. Howard said brokers can make agreements with major customers months before a crop is planted.
“Our brokers are making contracts with Acme, Giant, Redners and Walmart in February. The plants aren’t even in the ground yet. You don’t even know what kind of weather we’re going to have,” she said.
Meanwhile, Howard said activity on the auction platform which locals have visited for generations to purchase other produce has slowed. Sales to independent produce stands and small stores have declined over the years while demand for personal canning has moved in the other direction, she said, with churches, senior centers, food banks and other groups looking for more produce.
“Thankfully, we do have the brokers for the watermelons,” she said. For smaller crops, “there isn’t a middle person. You just come here and get what you need.”
While selling farther from home can bring a better price, Howard said, a trip to Philadelphia or another large market also means paying for a truck, driver, fuel and time on the road. Perishable produce may also need refrigerated transportation, adding another cost.
Moving crops via contract
Some farmers in Delaware find outlets like the Laurel Farmers' Auction Market helping in finding a buyer for their products.
Delaware has a long history of processing crops close to where they are grown, offering a path forward by way of contracting products for farmers.
By 1880, the census recorded 33 canneries in the state, according to a University of Delaware history of the industry. Processors bought crops at their facilities and at collection points along railways and boat docks. Rail connections helped Delaware agricultural products reach larger cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.
A Milford Museum history program reported 111 Delaware canneries in 1919. Five years later, a Delaware Labor Commission list identified 71 operating canneries, according to a U.S. Women’s Bureau report. Federal researchers visited 34 of those facilities and estimated that they employed about 3,700 people during peak weeks.
Transportation also changed how agricultural products were moved from farm to consumer with an estimated 90% of Delaware canneries’ finished products reaching market by truck by 1961 with the remainder traveling by rail, according to the university history.
Today, processing remains an important outlet for Delaware farms, but it looks very different. Delaware now lays claim to just two frozen vegetable processing facilities rather than canneries – Hanover Foods in Clayton and the Pictsweet Company in Bridgeville.
Much like the poultry industry in which local processing sites like Mountaire, Perdue or Allen Harim contract with farmers to grow chickens – produce processors also use farmer-based contracts.
A 2024 announcement from Delaware Prosperity Partnership said Hanover Foods, for example, contracted with 41 Delaware farms and 38 Maryland farms to grow peas, corn, lima beans and edamame for processing. Hanover then harvested, processed, packaged and distributed those products for retailers across the country.
University of Delaware Extension estimates that farmers collectively plant nearly 60,000 acres of vegetables in the state each year of which about 60% of that acreage is devoted to crops for processing.
Finding another buyer
But Howard told DBT that while those contracts with processing facilities provide a route for the sale of specific crops, fresh produce outside a contract still needs to find buyers at a sustainable cost to the farmer.
For a store seeking only a couple of boxes of product, local farmer David Marvel said making a separate trip may cost more than the order is worth when gas and other costs are considered.
During the week of Sept. 21, on-highway diesel averaged $6.55 per gallon across the Central Atlantic region which includes Delaware, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The regional average was about 89 cents higher than it had been just five weeks earlier.
The drive to the store also includes the cost of a driver for the time it takes to get there and time away from the farm which could be used for harvesting, packing and other needs, he added, among other travel-related costs.
Howard said large wholesale channels have their own constraints. Brokers arrange sales with major customers, but a grower may have few alternatives when a crop falls outside the size a retailer wants.
Oversized watermelons have been difficult to move this season, she told DBT. A customer expecting a certain number of melons in each bin may reject larger fruit, even when it is otherwise marketable. Finding another buyer able to handle that quantity can be difficult.
“I never thought I’d ever sit here and say that these watermelons are all too big,” Howard said.
Some of those melons can go to a juicer or a food bank, Howard said, but those outlets have limits, too. She described a food bank that cut large melons into smaller portions for distribution; while others cannot easily handle fruit that size. Without a buyer or a way to move the crop, edible watermelons end up left in the field, creating food waste and a lost sale for the grower.
Government officials in Delaware are working on statewide initiatives to address some of these needs through programs like the First State Food System Program, announced last year, which prioritized aggregation, cold storage and transportation. This year, the Delaware Grocery Initiative awarded $712,500 to 28 recipients, including $15,000 to Southern Delaware Truck Growers which operates the Laurel Farmers’ Auction Market to support future distribution efforts.
G’s DElights in Lewes, an operation run by mother-and-daughter duo Michele and Raelynn Grogan, also received a grant from the grocery initiative. The pair takes cosmetically imperfect produce and turns it into freeze-dried foods, creating products that can be sold after fresh produce’s short marketing window has passed.
The business sourced produce, herbs and edible flowers from 22 farms in Kent and Sussex counties and on Maryland’s Lower Shore. They operate five freeze dryers and have developed more than 100 snacks, mixes, garnishes and baking ingredients through their business model.
But even though demand is growing for their freeze-dried foods, the Grogans told DBT that their small operation can process only part of the usable product they encounter.
“We can only do so much as a two-man team,” Raelynn said during the interview. “There was still so much product left to be moved.”
To help make a dent in food waste and improve sales for local farmers, they are developing an app called FarmFlow DE, a business-to-business marketplace intended to connect growers with wholesale and food-service buyers for additional surplus. They received $12,500 from the grocery initiative to support the cost of app development.
The Grogans said they plan to pilot FarmFlow DE from October through December, gathering feedback from farms and potential customers such as restaurants, bakeries, breweries, processors and schools. They hope to develop it further after the pilot and would like to add transportation support for the app in the future.
“This all started around a simple concept and mission of we’re just here to fight food waste,” she told DBT. “There’s no reason why the too much and the too ugly could go to waste because it’s perfectly fine.”
Finding a use for that produce also means another chance for a farmer to earn a living from their work. Howard sees the cost to farmers when too many sales fall through at the auction and she worries that, for some, their chances are running out.
“I’m afraid that, next year, we won’t have the farmers that I have right now. They’re just not — they just are not even paying their startup loans off. And if you haven’t paid your startup loan off by now, you’re in trouble. You’re really, really in trouble,” Howard told DBT. “I have very, very big farmers that I don’t know that they’re going to farm next year.”
