Preserving Home and Heartland

New Jersey is one of America’s most densely populated states. So it’s no surprise that farmers are feeling squeezed, both in their acreage and their finances. But some of the other eight-point-seven million people in that state are providing answers: innovative ways to keep half a million of the last farm acres in the hands of farmers.
    
Larry Kuser farms more than 200 acres in Burlington County—New Jersey’s prime agricultural region and the state’s largest county. His is a farm rich in family history and he couldn’t be more proud, “I’m third generation here so I’m walking in rooms and touching things and doing things that I can say my grandfather did this.”
    
Larry grows nursery stock and produce. But these days he has more that this year’s crop in mind. He wants his farm to be there for future generations of New Jerseyans. But like so many farmers, he’s been under intense pressure to sell his land to make way for houses adding, “I would say conservatively in the 80’s that we were solicited by a developer I would say five or six times a year easily.” 
  
Larry resisted and, instead, applied to the county Agriculture Development Board in 1989 to sell his development easement. When landowners sell development easements, they still own the land but sell the rights to develop it for anything other than agriculture. Those deed restrictions remain for any future owners.   Larry says, “A lot of my friends really thought I was nuts. Cause you give up a lot of money and why would I want to do that and I could build houses, sell off lots and do all of those kinds of things. 

So I have this weird feeling that I think we should leave something to our children and we should leave something for our grandchildren. “

In 1983 the people of New Jersey agreed that saving farmland is good for everyone. They voted to approve a new act called the “Agricultural Retention Act”. It created a way for the state government and county agricultural boards to work together to save farmland. State officials say they’re now confident that half a million of the very last eight-hundred thousand acres of New Jersey’s farmland can be preserved.  

Susan Craft with the New Jersey Agriculture Development Program says, “Our goal in New Jersey is to preserve a land base that’s sufficient in size and quality to support the industry of agriculture into the future.” Craft says a Rutgers University study shows the state of New Jersey—the most densely populated in the country--would likely build out in another 30 to 50 years if the land isn’t kept in agriculture.

Not only does the preservation program keep farmers in business there are other incentives as well. Larry Kuser says, “The other thing that the Farmland Preservation did for us is it obviously gives us a piece of cash which significantly allowed me to restructure my debt. Typically farmers have a lot of debt. But I was able to get rid of a lot of that debt.” That gave Kuser the resources to expand his operation—growing vegetables to sell directly to the public, starting a children’s farm education program and turning the ancestral home into a bed and breakfast
    
While Larry Kuser has enjoyed the benefits of farm preservation for a number of years, John and Edith Hlubik have just gotten into the game. They say it was a big step but it’s one they’re glad they made. Edith says, “We love this place. It’s really really nice. The kids have always been happy here. Erin has always had horses. John has always had tractors. And you know they were always content.”                   
    
Edith Hlubik is talking about her children—now grown—and still involved in the family’s 500-acre corn and soybean farm in New Hanover. Like Larry Kuser, the Hlubiks were pressured by developers to sell.  Edith says, “All around us has just grown up into developments. And we knew we had to do something.  We had talked to one developer. When push comes to shove and you actually think about houses growing on this farm it’s really hard.” 
               
Money from the preservation program gives the Hlubiks a retirement income they wouldn’t have had and it makes it easier for son John to take over. He applauds the idea, “We’ve got a lot of roots that go deep in the farming community and it’s kind of a tradition that we’d like to carry on.”

The Hlubik farm is part of a hundred and 86 thousand acres the state has preserved so far.  Susan Craft says it’s been a success, “So there is a strong feeling in the general public and certainly in New Jersey that preserving land, preserving farmland and keeping farmers in business is something worth doing.“

Garden State Facts
The majority of New Jersey farms are less than a hundred acres in size and most are family owned. True to its name as the “Garden State”, New Jersey exports nursery and garden plants as well as fruits and vegetables from orchards and truck farms.