Delaware Farm Bureau members advocate for better USPS service

Late medications, bills never received and livestock dead on arrival are just a few of the consequences Delaware farmers have faced over the last year due to problems with the United States Postal Service.

Searching for answers, Delaware Farm Bureau members reached out to local and state legislators for help. Sen. Chris Coons recently made sure their voices were heard from the Senate floor.

“Bill Powers, a former county councilman I know well from New Castle County, member of the farm bureau, is a longtime turkey grower who now provides fresh eggs for local farmers markets. Bill has experienced significant losses with turkey and chick deliveries, and called my office with concerns,” he said while mentioning just a few of the thousands of constituent contacts he has had regarding this issue.

The Delaware Farm Bureau also had sent a letter to Coons, and Sen. Tom Carper and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester in January detailing some of the postal service concerns facing farmers.

At the end of Coons’ speech to the Senate, he discussed a letter sent from another farm bureau member, Trebs Thompson of Newark, an egg farmer with Whimsical Farms.

“Trebs wrote, ‘Largely our postal service has been a jewel. It handles a large volume of mail cheaply with a high degree of speed and accuracy. Many of us depend on it for paperwork, medications, orders, payments and, for farmers like me, seeds and day-old chicks. The post office has been shipping day-old chicks to farms like mine,’ Trebs wrote, ‘for over 100 years. Today, all 20 baby hens arrived cold and lifeless. I cried as I opened the box. The postal supervisor cried. The gentleman who normally delivers my mail apologized profusely, but it’s not his fault. Whatever one feels about mail-in ballots or politics,’ she wrote, ‘I’m asking you to put this aside and do what you can to restore the postal service.’ Madame President, Trebs Thompson is right. No farmer should ever have to open a box of dead chicks.”

The Delaware Farm Bureau will continue to advocate for the needs of farmers and ranchers in the First State. For more information, go to defb.org.