Circle Brook in Andover Township is a small-farm success story. Photo: Rebecca McAlpin
Driving along our busy highways or looking east across the Hudson River to the vast New York City skyline, it can be hard to fathom that New Jersey is farm country. But with 10,000 farms—and growing—Jersey Grown is more than just a marketing slogan. It’s a way of life. The state is a leading producer of eggplant, cranberries and tomatoes, and home to an increasing number of idealistic younger farmers who are leading a resurgence of smaller local farms growing food naturally.
“New Jersey is truly a state with remarkable potential,” says Ruthie Perretti, a small farmer who also serves as president of the board of New Jersey’s Foodshed Alliance, a nonprofit working to strengthen sustainable farming, increase access to local, healthy food, and protect the environment. “We have the farms, we have the resources to produce so much regeneratively, and most importantly, we have the market.”
Food and agriculture is the third largest industry in New Jersey, behind only pharmaceuticals and tourism; almost $1.5 billion of Jersey agricultural products were sold in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But there are real fears in the agricultural community about the future of farming, namely, that farmers are beginning to age out—the average New Jersey farmer is over 60 years old—and that our land is being overdeveloped. But tucked away in every corner of the state are farmers growing the healthiest possible food, if you know where to find it. And with the state’s strategic location between New York City and Philadelphia, it has plenty of buyers for produce and other goods. “In the last census, there were 1,400 farmers under age 35 in New Jersey,” says New Jersey secretary of agriculture Edward Wengryn. “That is a new wave.”
It may be a small number, but these newer and younger farmers practicing healthier farming methods believe they are the future of New Jersey farming.
Farming is a Calling
Photo: Rebecca McAlpin
Small farms typically don’t bring in enough revenue to support a family. While 220 of the state’s largest farms record more than $1 million in annual sales each, the majority of the state’s farms average less than $10,000 in sales per year. Most farmers interviewed for this story have day jobs, like Porter Little IV, a granite designer who bought his grandfather’s 58-acre farm in Hunterdon County eight years ago, at the age of 47. Little established a small herd of Angus and Baldy cows on the land and was soon selling grass-fed beef to family, neighbors and friends.
Like other idealistic new farmers, the lifestyle and connection to the land brought Little back to farming. For many younger farmers getting into the field, concerns about environmental factors and chemicals in food lure them back to the land and to healthier growing methods.
Buy our September 2024 issue here. Cover photo: Chris Buck
“I’ve always been attracted to the farm,” says Little, who grew up in Pennsylvania, but spent every summer working and living on his grandparents’ Lambertville farm. “On the last day of school, I’d wake up, pack my suitcase, and head right from the school bus to the farm. It always felt like home here.”
Set on a green stretch of highway in Hunterdon County, Lambert Farm is among the growing number of smaller farms that prioritize crop rotation, cover crops (non-cash crops that benefit the soil), and farming without pesticides or herbicides. These farmers use the term regenerative farming to distinguish their no-herbicide, no-pesticide, soil-healthy methods from those of the larger, commercial farms that grow single crops, such as corn or soy, and use chemical pesticides. For the smaller, organic-based farm, regenerative practices that nourish rather than deplete the soil are a passion, a mission and the future.
On Lambert Farm, which operated for nearly 80 years as a dairy farm, Little spends weekdays and weekends feeding and tending his herd, maintaining 58 acres of timothy and clover that he harvests for hay, and selling his hay as well as grass-fed beef from a freezer in the front store-room, where his grandfather once sold local seed.
In June, Little invested $20,000 in a Discbine machine for hay cutting, and brought in a bull to sire his cattle. “It’s a rent-a-bull,” he says with a laugh, adding that he hopes the bull will successfully impregnate at least four or five of his herd.
Reflecting the attitude of many newer farmers, Little says, “It’s all about getting away from the factory farm and getting back to nature in the soil and a whole ecosystem that yields more healthy food.” He adds, “For me, it’s about keeping the tradition going. So many generations have been here before and made an actual living out of it—it’s inspiring.”
Organically Grown
Melon plants are “hardened off,” or prepared for transfer to outdoor fields, at Circle Brook. Photo: Rebecca McAlpin
Among today’s new Garden State farmers keenly focused on regenerative farming are Jason and Deborah DeSalvo, both in their fifties. After their children graduated from high school, the DeSalvos bought 43 acres in Hunterdon County, built an energy-efficient home, and began to farm their land organically. Their Cold Brook Farm earned the state’s official “organically-grown” certification in 2024.
“To me, you don’t really have an option; if you care about human health you’ve got to farm organic,” says Jason DeSalvo. Though many New Jersey farmers say the paperwork and documentation to become organic certified is arduous and daunting, the DeSalvos gladly did the work to support their mission of organic farming, or growing food without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.
“People trust that what we’re going to be putting on their table is healthy and is going to taste really good,” he says of the farm’s heirloom grains and vegetables. “The farm was designed not only to benefit us, but the wider ecological community. We are part of nature, and if we continue to try to live apart from nature, we’re going to run out of planet very soon.”
Perretti, of the Foodshed Alliance, who is also founder of Marksboro Mills, a grain hub and communal working space for local millers and farmers in Frelinghuysen Township, is aligned with the DeSalvos and others on environmental and health concerns. “We’re living in a period of heightened awareness about the sustainability of our food system, as well as a strong demand for healthy food, as consumers become more aware and engaged in knowing about their food and where it comes from,” says Perretti. “I believe New Jersey could be a leader in smaller, local farm production, focused not on feeding the world, but the immediate community. And this example is one to be replicated wherever there is healthy soil, sun, water, and a hungry population for food with taste and health value.”
[RELATED: Volunteer Farmers Save Leftover Crops to Feed NJ’s Food Insecure]
Preserving the Land
According to state lore, a Camden man named Abraham Browning gave us the moniker “the Garden State.” Speaking at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition on New Jersey Day in 1876, Browning called New Jersey an immense barrel filled with good things to eat and open at both ends, with Pennsylvanians grabbing from one end and New Yorkers from the other. Benjamin Franklin is also on record praising our vast farm fields as a barrel that feeds from both ends.
Jersey farmers want the moniker to remain true today and in the future. But development of our farmland is far outpacing preservation, and, as our farmers’ awareness of the importance of healthy soil and organic and natural processes grows, so too does the need to protect the state’s farmland from the ongoing pressure of development and large-scale farms using pesticides.
One-third of New Jersey farms are protected under the state’s Farmland Preservation Program, which turned 40 last year. There are now 250,000 preserved acres in New Jersey. To encourage farming rather than building houses or commercial subdivisions, the program pays farmers to preserve their farmland from development; farmers in turn can use the payment to reinvest, expand or save for a future need at the farm.
The New Jersey Farmland Preservation Program has a variety of ways to assess the value of land and pays accordingly. “Our goal is to preserve roughly 500,000 acres,” says Heidi Winzinger, communication and resource manager for the program, acknowledging the critical mass of development that’s happening across the state. “The big thing that’s happening right now—the big, big news—is that we know we need to do this much faster. The pressure is getting more intense to develop.”
John Krueger, owner of Circle Brook Farm, looks out on his fields of vegetables and flowers. Photo: Rebecca McAlpin
One of the great small-farm success stories is that of John Krueger, owner of Circle Brook Farm in Andover Township in Sussex County. The 80-acre farm grows a wide variety of produce and florals in rotational crops year-round—from cover crops in winter to strawberries, broccoli, arugula, ramps, spinach, carrots, kale and more. “I came to farming from an environmental background,” owner John Krueger says. “That’s definitely my motivation.”
His environmental background led him to organic farming.
Keeping Food in Farming
Given the high price of land and the pressure to develop, combined with the existential threat of New Jersey’s aging farm population, efforts to bring new, younger farmers and land together are critical to fostering healthy farming in Jersey.
While traditional programs to support young and future farmers, such as the 4H and Future Farmers of America groups, are disappearing in the state, Rutgers University now runs a successful ready-to-farm training program.
The Foodshed Alliance, based in Warren County, also helps to bring new farmers to the land and supports a growing network of farms and farmers in Sussex, Warren, Morris, Passaic, Bergen, Essex and Hudson counties, including the 11-acre Cattail Hollow Farm in Lafayette. Owned by Meg Myers, 39, and her husband, Kim Skov, Cattail Hollow raises chickens, ducks and guineas. The farm also grows and sells an assortment of seasonal produce and hosts a twice-yearly farm-to-table dinner that features organic produce from their and neighboring farms.
“I call myself naturally grown,” says Myers. “We don’t do any synthetic sprays.”
Myers, who grew up in Basking Ridge, has a long history volunteering and working on farms, including the Clifton-based urban farm City Green.
“I’m a firm believer that getting your hands dirty is good both physically and mentally,” Myers says. “When I was going through treatment for breast cancer, I totally credit staying busy and farming at the same time for my successful healing journey.”
Kendrya Close, executive director of the Foodshed Alliance, reiterates the regenerative and healthy-soil mission of today’s new farmers.“Real farming is about how we treat the soil,” says Close.
“I think the general public thinks that we are the Garden State, and everything is great. Especially in our area of northern New Jersey, we drive around and see big swathes of farmland,” she says. “But a big percentage of Jersey’s family farming is commodity farming,” she says, meaning soy and corn that are “degrading our soil through monocropping.” Monocropping is a method of farming in which a single crop is grown over and over on the same land, rather than rotating the crops, planting cover crops, and allowing the soil to fallow, all of which improve soil health.
“A large majority of New Jersey’s family farms are growing nursery, greenhouse or sod, but not food,” Close says. “This new generation [of farmers] doesn’t want to do that. They want to do better, but also, they want to do better financially.”
For smaller, organic farmers especially, the circle of connectivity provided by the Foodshed Alliance is critical to their survival. The alliance secures farmland through land trusts, conservation foundations and other avenues. “On the farm we own, we directly lease plots to farmers,” Close says.
Staying Afloat
Households can purchase a CSA farm share at Circle Brook and receive a weekly box of fresh produce. Photo: Rebecca McAlpin
Since small farms typically don’t earn farmers very much money—between $1,000 and $10,000 annually—some decide to supply food banks and schools with fresh produce, while others turn to Consumer Supported Agriculture (CSAs), in which many households buy subscription membership to a farm, and receive a weekly box of fresh produce—for added income. A CSA is an excellent way for consumers to support local farmers.
Circle Brook Farm in Andover Township has CSA shares that cost $660 per season for a half share of fruit and vegetables to $1,000 for a premium share that provides for a family of four.
After working construction and on other people’s farms, Circle Brook’s Krueger knew he wanted to have a farm of his own. In 2006, he rented 2 acres at a neighboring farm in Andover. Two years later, he took over that farmer’s hay fields, plowed them and planted vegetables for CSAs. He knew he wanted to buy the farm up the road, but couldn’t come close to the $1.3 million price tag. Instead, he rented the land and moved to the house on the property. When the place came back on the market five years later, Krueger still didn’t have enough for the down payment.
Desperate, he reached out to his 600 CSA members and asked them to pledge ahead for the upcoming season. Some 150 members agreed, each bringing $600 to the table.
“Basically, with the help of my CSA members, I was able to buy the farm,” Krueger says, choking back emotion.
Now Krueger’s produce is sold at nine farmers markets—including Montclair, Jersey City and Hoboken—and to 600 CSA subscription members in Montclair, Westfield, Jersey City and beyond. Once a week, Krueger makes his CSA deliveries.
“I started with 2 acres, then grew it…” he says. Standing in the middle of his fields, Krueger looks around in wonder. “I was never rich, I never thought I’d be able to do this.” He pauses to shake his head, look around and laugh. “I never had a lot of money in my entire life. And then I bought the farm—and lived to tell about it.”
Laurie Lico Albanese is a novelist whose latest book is Hester. She lives with her husband in Montclair, where they have a lovely backyard garden.
No one knows New Jersey like we do. Sign up for one of our free newsletters here. Want a print magazine mailed to you? Purchase an issue from our online store.