Inaugural agriculture summit hears from Delaware farmers
- Sussex County Republican Committee
- 7 hours ago
- 4 min read
February 19, 2026
HARRINGTON — Farmers and agriculture leaders packed a room at the Delaware State Fairground Thursday during an inaugural summit held by Rep. Sarah McBride.
The three-hour summit underscored a widening gap between rising input costs, labor shortages, policy delays, housing and the ability of farmers, particularly smaller operations, to remain viable.
“This is not political. It is not partisan,” McBride said. “Both parties have failed farmers in this country. We all have to do better.”
The long-delayed federal farm bill, now more than three years overdue, was a starting point for the conversation. Delaware Secretary of Agriculture Don Clifton said that national conditions are deteriorating, noting a 46% increase in farm bankruptcies in 2025 and ongoing uncertainty around federal support programs.
“The state of agriculture nationally is tenuous. Every successful farm bill has been bipartisan. If it becomes partisan, nothing gets done,” Clifton warned.
Farmers echoed that urgency, pointing to gaps between federal funding announcements and actual implementation. Kent County Farm Bureau President Jim Minner described confusion around a recently announced $12 billion federal aid package directed at farmers after struggling to find information about how Delaware producers can take advantage of the package.
“If you’ve got $12 billion sitting out there, you ought to have a plan,” he said. “The right hand’s not telling the left hand what’s going on.”
Around the table, farmers repeatedly pointed to increasing input costs as the most immediate threat to profitability — particularly fertilizer, seed and insurance.
“When we have a good year, prices go up for fertilizer and chemicals,” Minner said. “Then prices fall, but inputs stay high. What’s wrong with this picture?”
Clifton and others dove deeper on the fertilizer situation, highlighting that there are only “five major players” in the United States’ $64 billion market.
“We had a Zoom meeting with the fertilizers’ president from Missouri. [It was] asked, ‘When is [the price] going to go down?’ And his answer was, ‘When we can’t pay for it,’ Delaware Farm Bureau President Bill Powers said.
McBride noted, “The reality is. . . monopolization means that they can essentially extort small farmers and they can say to folks the prices will come down – not when supply changes or not when we, you know, improve our methods of doing this more cheaply, but when you just can’t pay anymore, when we can’t extort you anymore.”
She added, “One of the things that I know many of my colleagues are frustrated about with regard to the farm bill is that it doesn’t do enough to address monopolies.”
Other primary issues came to the surface, too, such as increasing insurance costs. Growers reported sharp premium increases and reduced coverage for older poultry houses and said the issue continues to escalate in the First State.
“Insurance costs are hitting our poultry growing immensely. We’ve seen several providers no longer covering poultry houses over 20 years old,” Delmarva Chicken Association Agricultural Conservation Specialist Liz Warren said.
“Here on Delmarva, we’re looking at about half of our farms that have houses over 21 years old and almost 30% of those are over 30 years old. So, if they can find insurance, the cost of it is going through the roof. We know all input costs have gone up, but then to have that insurance piece go up or the threat of not being able to continue production because of insurance is really hitting our heart,” she added.
Avian influenza, which directly impacts poultry operators, was also brought up with farmers emphasizing that changes need to be made to resources available to in instances of avian flu. Farms impacted by the flu receive disaster-related resources, but neighboring farms do not – even though they have to temporarily shut down during an outbreak until the coast is clear.
Farm labor also emerged as a critical pressure point with leaders discussing inconsistent and difficulty navigating visa processes and changes. They also mentioned a longer-term workforce issue: fewer young people entering farming.
“The barrier to entry has never been higher,” Smyrna farmer Andrea Haritos said. “You can spend over a million dollars on a farm and earn the equivalent of a part-time income.”
She emphasized that while federal and local changes are good goals, changing consumer behavior should also be on the radar if the goal it to also support the smallest operations like her own family farm.
Others noted that without viable income, farmland is increasingly sold for development, accelerating consolidation and reducing agricultural land.
Throughout the discussion, one theme remained consistent – the need for sustainability-focused policy solutions. Stakeholders urged McBride and her colleagues to act with urgency.
“This is economic policy. This is health policy. But it’s also national security policy,” McBride said. “You all are feeding families, but you’re fueling our economy here in Delaware. And we cannot have a strong state or a strong economy if we don’t guarantee that our farmers and our larger agricultural industry are thriving.”
