New Jersey Nightly News; Farms - Closer Look

The. New Jersey agriculture statistics paint a rosy picture. One hundred more farms in 1080 than in 1979 the first such increase since 1944. But as often is the case statistics don't tell the whole story. Experts say the increase in the number of farms is due to inflation and to a change in the definition of just what constitutes a farm today anyone who produces and sells at least $1000 worth of products is counted as a farmer and that number counts a lot of part time as well as full time farmers. Therefore any estimate of the average farm income would be distorted by low incomes of part time farmers. Yet in 1978 alone New Jersey farmers sold more than one million dollars in products each and every day. Many of those products came from a lot of very small under 50 acre farms and a lot of very large over 150 acre farms at the expense of the mid-size New Jersey farm and farm land is so expensive today that many farmers are

forced to rent rather than own a good portion of the land they farm. That trend is likely to continue but it's not the only change the 1980s will bring. New Jersey's nickname of the Garden State could someday be replaced by the grain state reflecting a change in what the New Jersey farmer plants and harvest. Today one third of the state's harvest of crop land is in soybeans and grain. That's four times the amount grown 10 years ago. This by no means is the end of the New Jersey vegetable or dairy farmer but grain is more mechanized and less labor intensive than dairy or vegetable farming. And the UN availability and rising cost of labor have made grain farming more attractive and profitable at least until the Russian grain embargo or the mills are not. Taking any more corn right now when the prices dropped. At least 40 cents a bushel. And how long this will hold we do not know. The cost of production and the price of fuel has risen so. That 40

cents. Could be the breaking point. But Jersey Farmer George Miller didn't break when others got out of poultry farming. Instead he stayed what farmers used to be farming more than one thing dairy grain and poultry sticking with a poultry business some experts say may be a wise move. The energy crisis may make egg farming in New Jersey profitable once again. Shipping costs from the south are expected to rise and New Jersey is strategically located within a 250 mile radius of 60 million people may pick up the slack. Yet some New Jersey farmers disagree poultry is a dying business in New Jersey because many forms have been put out because of odor but developments moving in. Taxes have been high the price of grain has made the cost of unbearable pretty there and the cost of the price of eggs per dozen

has not changed in the last well 20 years. Eggs are the farmers are getting now for eggs the same price that eggs were wholesaling for in one thousand fifty three. The industry that's coming into New Jersey and the people that are moving in. There's just. The great demand for housing and. The price of land. For Foreman. And you just. Can't take it and the tax situation too. Is eliminating the former but the New Jersey farmer has proved to be a hearty source. He survived the big development push of the 50s and 60s that chewed up 40 to 60000 acres of farmland each year. However during the past decade farmers have slowed that land lost to a total of 70000 acres or just 90 farms. Yet the crane is still a menace. I think the challenge immediate challenge is a fuel situation. And available land bigger farce of the land for. Farming because for grain with bigger equipment to

utilize the fuel to figure Savannah you need larger fields. And these are becoming hard to come to.