GEORGETOWN – The Delmarva Chicken Association (DCA) has released new industry numbers that suggest a consistent uptick in agricultural production on the Eastern Shore.
While the industry saw a record breaking $5 billion in sales in 2022 on the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, sales dipped slightly in 2023 to $4.4 billion, likely due to increases in production costs. But in 2024, sales headed in a better direction again with producers collectively reaching $4.8 billion in sales for the year.
DCA Spokesman James Fisher said a better indicator of how the industry is faring during these turbulent times may be to analyze the number of chickens produced. In 2022, chicken farmers on Delmarva produced a whopping 596 million chickens.
That number increased only slightly in 2023 to about 601 million. Last year, however, the community raised a total of 613 million chickens which came to 4.6 billion pounds of shelf-and-table-ready chicken – most of which was sold right here on the Eastern Shore.
“Why ship it far when there are customers here?” Fisher asked the Delaware Business Times. “These numbers show a pretty gradual, but stead increase in the industry across the past three years. Everyone has been trying to do a little more with a little less every year because of less farmland. And every year, there are fewer growers, too. Growers have to be more sufficient now.”
The annual report released by the DCA also goes on the detail some of the costs associated with farming chickens on Delmarva. It details the 1,206 farm families and 17,947 chicken company employees that collectively supported the industry over the last year.
Those producers collectively earned $327 million in contract payments, an increase from 2023 based on an inflation-adjusted formula, and they spent:
- $1.3 billion on corn, wheat, soybeans and other feed ingredients,
- $902 million in wages, excluding benefits,
- $187 million on capital improvements to processing plants, hatcheries and wastewater treatment systems, and
- $392 million in packaging and processing supplies.
The report also states that many farmers have also invested in conservation practices to protect water quality.
“Delmarva’s chicken growers and companies have been able to produce more food today than in the past for a rapidly growing region, even while farmland is lost to development, and we’re doing it in an environmentally responsible way,” DCA Executive Director Holly Porter said in a press release.
“Last year, growers and businesses overcame multiple challenges to keep feeding America and the world, including inflation that made energy and farm equipment more expensive and the expense and hard work needed to keep our flocks safe from avian influenza,” Porter continued. “As a result, Delmarva continues to be a leader in the U.S. chicken industry.”
