DOVER — The Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village was recently selected by the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street initiative as one of six nationwide recipients of curatorial assistance for the creation of an exhibition focused on food.

The museum’s collaboration with MoMS will bring national context to its local display, “Delaware Produce and Transportation: Guiding the Eating Habits of the Nation.”

This is the second collaboration between the Smithsonian and the ag museum in the last two years, and it was made possible in part by support from Delaware Humanities.

To celebrate Delaware’s contribution to a well-fed society and to officially announce the partnership, the Dover museum will hold a gala farm-to-table dinner June 15. For details, visit agriculturalmuseum.org/june-farm-to-table-dinner.

Delaware’s background in food

The expansive land of North America and its variety of climates offered plentiful and varied foodstuffs naturally, which was complemented by immigrants and their agricultural knowledge from their places of origin.

In Delaware, this transition into productive, life-sustaining agriculture began in the earliest settlements of the 17th century and has continued to its present-day reputation as the little agricultural engine that feeds the nation and the world. In particular, Sussex County and lower Kent County have used their fertile soils and varied transportation conduits to grow and move crops, produce and poultry for more than two centuries.

Through innovation in related fields, the state has been a leader in greatly reducing hunger worldwide. And, from ships to railroads to an interstate highway, Delaware has been a key cog in the delivery of food products locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

The First State’s abundance of white oak fueled its shipbuilding industry, which began in Milford in 1782. The vessels built there were used to transport our No. 1 cash crop, peaches, and other vegetation to northern markets. The main hindrance, however, was the lack of an improved road system in lower Delaware, which inhibited farmers from getting their crops to available ports.

It wasn’t until the 1860s, when the Delaware Railroad was built, that produce from previously landlocked areas became accessible to rail transport. This had the added effect of increasing profits and expanding the marketability of a wider variety of products, including canned goods that were being sent nationwide without spoilage.

While the railway was an immense aid to farmers and consumers alike, there was still a chasm in production and profitability because of the lack of a statewide road system, which impeded Downstate farmers from moving produce from their rural, often waterlogged, back roads to the rail transport centers.

Into this void stepped two residents — John G. Townsend, the “Strawberry King of Delaware,” and T. Coleman du Pont, the early 20th-century scion of the du Pont family dynasty. Together, they envisioned an advancement in transportation that would lower costs, improve access and speed delivery of farm goods. Their innovation was the intrastate DuPont Highway, built at Mr. du Pont’s expense and completed in the early 1920s. No longer dependent solely on the railroads and their high fees, farmers now had unfettered free access to local and regional markets.

Also, in the early decades of that century, an accidental visionary stepped forward to transform the eating habits of the nation.

In 1923, Cecile Steele had the vision to turn the 500 chicks she had mistakenly been delivered into what has become a multibillion-dollar international business. Instead of returning the delivery, she raised the chicks and marketed them for profit, thus starting the poultry industry in which Delaware is the world leader.