Aquaculture may become one of Delmarva's industries of the future.
By Terry Plowman
No chicken industry on Delmarva? The thought of Delmarva without the deeply entrenched, $1.6 billion industry is almost as impossible to imagine as it would have been to imagine the peninsula without orchards and oysters in the late 1800s or without menhaden in the 1950s.
When Delmarva was shipping five million baskets of peaches off the peninsula in 1875, or when Lewes, Del., was landing 360 million pounds of menhaden in 1953, it would have been unthinkable that those industries would disappear. But like ironworking, milling and saltmaking -- and like silkworm cultivation in the 1830s, touted on Delmarva as more profitable "than all the gold mines in Christendom" -- peach-growing and menhaden fishing have lost their status as major industries on the peninsula.
Although it's unlikely that Delmarva's giant poultry industry will disappear anytime soon, the fate of formerly profitable industries is an interesting lesson in the region's ever-changing economy, and it allows us to more freely gaze into the crystal ball of Delmarva's economic future.
So, what does lie ahead for business on the Eastern Shore?
As Delmarva approaches the 21st century, most economic development experts walk a line between the past and future. They predict the continued health of the region's current big hitters -- poultry and tourism -- and they look ahead, like everyone else in the country, to a boost from new high-tech industries, such as information technology, biomedical and agricultural research and semiconductor manufacturing.
Agribusiness
While most economic development experts say Delmarva's poultry industry will likely survive its current environmental battle over the disposal of chicken manure, even the optimistic experts are not predicting a rosy future for the region's crop farmers.
Low prices for what they grow and increasing prices that developers are willing to pay for their land create a temptation to sell out for many farmers, whose average age on Delmarva is approaching 60. "In the next 15 years we're going to see a major shift in the ownership of (farm) property," says Derby Walker, a Sussex County extension agent for the Delaware Department of Agriculture.
While Delmarva continues to lose farmland to development, its production of various crops will be aided by new, more productive hybrids, according to Bruce Walton, a longtime farmer and now executive assistant to Delaware's Secretary of Agriculture.
But despite hope for scientific advances and alternatives uses for agricultural products (soyburgers for example), Walton says, "I don't see any miracles" that will hold off farming's economic struggle. The future is clear for Walker: "In 20 years, we'll have fewer farms and farmers, and more houses and development."
Walker notes that keeping the poultry industry on Delmarva is a key to keeping farming healthy, because the peninsula's 600 million chickens eat its corn and other grains. But some observers say the future of even that giant industry isn't a sure thing.
"(The future of Delmarva's) poultry industry is more in the hands of government regulators than the market," says Memo Diriker, director of The Project Management Group, an affiliate of the Frank Perdue School of Business in Salisbury, Md.
Diriker says the poultry industry could be driven elsewhere by current pressure from state governments and the EPA to force the industry to solve pollution problems related to chicken manure. In an industry with low profit margin, a few cents per pound cost increase could be enough to make large poultry companies consider relocating, he says. "I wouldn't be surprised if they moved closer to where the grain is, in the Midwest," Diriker says.
But the huge industry isn't anywhere near a wholesale move just yet, as economic development and agribusiness officials rush to preserve its future on Delmarva. Movers and shakers like John Burris, president of Delaware's State Chamber of Commerce, and Darrell Minnott, director of the Delaware Economic Development Office, point out that a lot of money is being spent on solutions to the manure problem -- solutions that may not only diminish water pollution but that may also create new industries on Delmarva. They point to the Perdue company's efforts to build a plant near Laurel, Del., that would convert raw manure to a pellet form that could be shipped off the peninsula to farmlands that can safely use the fertilizer. "Perhaps a new environmental industry will develop to deal with that challenge, and others," Burris says.
Noted historian William H. Williams writes in his "Delmarva's Chicken Industry" book: "Almost from its inception in 1923, there have been predictions of impending calamity concerning the future of Delmarva's broiler industry. Despite these dire predictions, however, the industry just keeps moving ahead, solving old problems and meeting new challenges with innovative ideas and the application of the most advanced modern technology."
Tourism
Burris, Minnott and other economic development officials say they recognize that Delmarva's economic future isn't dependent solely on poultry, but on another huge industry that can be dramatically affected by manure-related pollution problems: tourism. "Our long-term hope is to preserve our poultry industry and obviously we want tourism to continue to grow (as well)," says Minnott.
Burris notes that the local appearance of pfiesteria, a poorly-understood microbe that seems to become toxic in polluted waters, was a "warning shot" to both the poultry industry and the billion-dollar tourism industry. Tourism officials who publically express a sunny outlook for solutions to Delmarva's water-pollution problems, are quietly afraid of the immediate downturn and long-lasting damage that the tourist industry would suffer from a bad outbreak of pfiesteria or some other water-pollution problem.
But while they hold their breath over that issue, tourism promoters are optimistically planning for continued growth in the 21st century, especially because of increased interest in off-season visits, theme tours, ecotourism and inland attractions.
Year-round residents may worry about increased numbers of visitors, but according to Keia Benefield, Delaware's director of tourism, "It's a misconception that tourism officials want just 'more, more, more' (summer visitors)."
"We want to work strategically to spread visitation throughout off-peak times, such as the shoulder seasons and weekdays during the summer," she says. "We realize that we are probably at capacity at the beaches (sometimes) during the summer."
Tourism officials also hope to encourage tourists to discover Delmarva areas away from the beaches. They believe the industry can grow by leading visitors to the peninsula's other treasures, both natural and historic. Benefield says that tourism promoters will do so by working across Delmarva's state borders to offer, for example, wide-ranging package tours of shipwreck museums, golf courses, canoe trails or historic sites. Travelers don't let state borders restrict them, so neighboring states on Delmarva have to work together more closely in the future, Benefield said.
The Internet will play an increasingly important role in tourism promotion on Delmarva as travelers rely more and more on that source of information. Many tourists already log on to the Web sites of resort-area businesses, but the 21st century will see even greater use of the Internet -- for example, the Delaware Tourism Office hopes that by mid-2000 it will have its information database, now used only by its toll-free operators, available to anyone via the Internet. In addition, tourism promoters will be able to do more niche marketing, as their electronic databases compile visitors' special interests -- for example, they will be able to use e-mail to easily alert a large number of music-lovers about an off-season jazz festival.
The wave of the future
Observers of Delmarva's economy predict that other existing industries will grow, and new ones ones will appear, to supplement the region's old standbys.
Outlet shops and other retail stores, already a strong relative of the tourism industry, will continue their growth, as will a host of what Diriker calls "technology-empowered" companies. These small, one- or two-person companies will represent a big part of Delmarva's economic future, he says, as they provide such services as consulting, book-keeping, archiving, and other technical, computer-dependent skills.
He also predicts that as more affluent migrants from metropolitan areas relocate to Delmarva, enterprises that cater to their luxury desires will thrive -- landscapers, home decorators, fitness clubs, entertainment-related businesses, collectible sellers and the like.
Joe Beatty, president of the Eastern Shore Builders Association, says this desire for high-end products is already evident in new home designs, which are bigger and fancier. He notes that the average square-footage of homes on the Eastern Shore is rising, and buyers are asking them to be outfitted with large master bedrooms, bathrooms and walk-in closets, as well as expensive counter tops, fixtures and state-of-the-art appliances.
Besides the growth of existing businesses, experts predict that brand-new industries will flourish on Delmarva in the 21st century.
Burris sees aquaculture -- the raising of fish in large tanks -- as an industry that will eventually take off on Delmarva, as it taps into both its farming and maritime traditions. He also foresees the possibility of microchip manufacturing in areas that have adequate water supplies, a requirement of that industry. Burris, like many other business experts, expects to see all kinds of "e-commerce" businesses developing in the next century on Delmarva -- Internet-based companies, maybe warehousing facilities for retail Web sites, satellite offices that can communicate with larger corporate headquarters through high-speed communication lines. "With electronic commerce, you don't have to be right on I-95 anymore," Burris says.
Even the historically agricultural Eastern Shore of Virginia expects to see more professional and technical businesses that rely on advanced communications. "There's a lot of interest from people who are able to conduct business from remote locations," says Denard Spady, executive director of Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore.
But Diriker tempers the optimism about high-tech industries with the warning that Delmarva has been slow to provide the cutting-edge communication connections required by those industries, such as Digital Subscriber Lines and other forms of high-speed Internet access.
Diriker says that governments have traditionally subsidized such economic engines as industrial parks and manufacturing plants, but he criticizes Delmarva states and counties for not aggressively supporting the infrastructure needed for modern high-tech industries.
In trying to generate jobs by subsidizing industrial parks, "they are using mid-20th-century logic, which is not a good idea at the beginning of the 21st century," Diriker says.
Minnott says that Delaware is "focused on the 21st century -- on where growth is going to be, not where it used to be." He sees the blossoming of "technical firms large and small, information technology, biotech life sciences" and other new industries on Delmarva.
"The jobs of the future are going to require more brains than brawn, which is why there's so much emphasis on education," Minnott says. "We have to be responsive to the needs of these new businesses in order to propel ourselves into the 21st century."