Gregory Burgess holds a master’s degree in public health and is a candidate for California’s 2nd Congressional District.
“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Feb. 26, 1937
Delaware sits at the center of this story. The Delmarva Peninsula is one of the most concentrated poultry-producing regions on Earth, as Perdue’s operations, processing plants and farms produce billions of pounds of chicken annually. H5N1 avian influenza is spreading through bird populations at the precise moment the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the federal agency responsible for surveillance, has lost 25% of its staff. Chesapeake Bay blue crab and oyster harvests are in documented climate-driven decline. The Iran conflict’s diesel surge hits every processing facility and refrigerated truck on the peninsula. And the $187 billion in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cuts are reaching Sussex County’s agricultural worker families, while food prices spike from five other directions at once. Delaware is living it first.
Food is not a policy abstraction. It is the biological foundation on which every other social function rests: economy, public health, workforce, national security. As of 2024, 47.9 million Americans, nearly 1 in 7, live in food-insecure households, the highest rate since 2013. That figure preceded three simultaneous shocks: the largest SNAP cut in the program’s 60-year history ($187 billion), a 27% reduction in the U.S. Department of Agriculture workforce and the disruption of global fertilizer supply chains by conflict in the Persian Gulf.
The near-term price shock is already locked in
The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly one-third of globally traded fertilizer, and the Persian Gulf accounts for approximately half of global urea exports, the primary nitrogen fertilizer for American corn and wheat. Fertilizer represents 19%-21% of corn and wheat production costs. This month, the American Farm Bureau Federation documented that farmers are facing 40% or higher cost spikes, with some unable to obtain supply at any price. And diesel surcharges from the same conflict compound costs at every step from farm to shelf.
For a family of four spending the national average of $1,200 a month on food, scenario modeling projects cumulative cost increases of 12%-24% by the end of 2026 — an additional $1,728 to $3,456 annually. Without structural intervention, that range climbs to $9,500 to $12,500 in additional annual costs by the early 2030s. No congressional action today can prevent the 2026 increase. What Congress determines now is the trajectory after 2026.
The long-term threat is the deeper problem
The Iran conflict is a near-term accelerant. The structural problem runs deeper: American farming depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers made from fossil fuels, binding food prices to global gas markets that no administration can fully control.
Climate change is compounding this vulnerability. A peer-reviewed 2025 study published in Nature found that global staple crop yields will be 24% lower by 2100 under high-emissions scenarios, with measurable losses already occurring today. Marine food systems are collapsing in parallel: Eastern Bering Sea snow crab populations have fallen over 90%, the Chesapeake Bay fisheries that Delaware depends on are in measurable decline, and the U.S. now runs a $20 billion annual seafood trade deficit.
SNAP: a demand engine for American agriculture
The $187 billion SNAP reduction is also an agricultural economy decision. The USDA’s own research shows that every $1 billion in SNAP benefits generates $1.54 billion in gross domestic product because SNAP dollars flow immediately into domestic food purchases. A bipartisan reform path exists: Retain work participation requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents; protect categorical exemptions for children, older adults and disabled individuals; and create SNAP agricultural service positions in farm labor and rural food logistics, preserving the agricultural demand multiplier, while creating measurable public value.
Solution exists, but it hasn’t been funded
The U.S. faces two simultaneous crises with a shared remedy. Western forests generate estimated wildfire costs of $394 billion to $893 billion annually, and the single largest obstacle to the Forest Service’s thinning strategy is slash disposal. No viable market exists for the woody material removed. A proposed National Forest Slash-Livestock Waste Composting Cooperative Program would create one: Forest slash blended with nitrogen-rich livestock manure produces ideal thermophilic compost, reducing on-farm nitrogen costs 15%-25% within five years and creating an estimated 100,000 rural jobs.
Cost of waiting is not neutral
The Agricultural Resilience Imperative’s 14 recommendations, if fully enacted, could hold a family of four’s additional annual food costs to approximately $4,200 by the early 2030s, compared to $9,500 or more under the current trajectory. Restoring the USDA Household Food Security Survey Module (the 30-year national baseline for measuring hunger, canceled in 2025) requires no new infrastructure. Halting reductions at APHIS costs almost nothing, yet may prevent an H5N1 outbreak that analysts estimate could add 15%-30% to dairy and poultry prices in a single quarter. For Delaware’s poultry industry, that is not a distant scenario. It is an operational risk accruing today.
These are not partisan choices. They are evidence-based governance decisions.
Food security is national security
The tools to act exist. The window is open now, and it will not remain open indefinitely.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
