Down on the farm (Off the Secretary’s Desk)

(Editor’s note: Douglas Fisher is the New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture.)

“An area of land and its buildings used for growing crops and rearing animals, usually in order to sell them” is one, dictionary-style way of defining a farm.
Put another way, as in Wikipedia, a farm is “an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops.”
Sounds simple enough that, if you asked about a hundred people, most could agree on the definition of a farm.
Only, on the whole as a society, we often don’t align because the rights and privileges attached to any practice will vary accordingly.
Today there are many different kinds of “farms” in the truest agricultural sense.
That’s especially so in New Jersey, where our agriculture is as diverse as our population, versus farms in larger, less densely populated states, where most farms might include thousands of acres, all planted with the same crop or populated with livestock.
In addition, to complicate matters even further, there so many entities that have woven the word “farm” into their business or corporate identity that oft-times it is taken advantage of for the purposes of self-promotion or business advantage.
Think of all the examples to which the nomenclature of farms or farm-related images is attached to an enterprise.
There are petroleum tank farms, solar farms, wind farms, farm-sounding housing developments, and even retail and manufacturers acting as if they are producing farm products, and more.
Not just the word “farm,” but those we associate with farms, such as “fields,” “meadows,” “barn,” endlessly embattled to connote what they in fact are not.
All of these enterprises want to attach the conjured notion of everything that is good about a farm and all that it means to each potential customer on a personal level, perhaps through a childhood memory or recollections of simpler times when most people absolutely could more easily define what was a farm.
It reminds me of the often-used term of “local” being applied that has been so abused and, because of that, became misunderstood and lost the value to convey true meaning. (That was addressed in New Jersey early this year, with a law defining “Locally Grown” passed that mandates that phrase be applied only to agricultural products grown in the state.)
Even what is produced on our farms has become confusing. Consumers now have bought into almond “milk,” as well as the explosion of the oxymoronic “plant-based meats.”
The field of agriculture is expanding fast and so many new systems, activities, and methodologies are springing forth every day that it will get even more confusing as time goes on.
And the programs and agencies that support agriculture have to be proactive in sorting out if, and how, these terms regarding farms might be applied for any number of purposes.
Is an amusement park also to be considered a farm because it has a petting zoo of lambs, goats, and sheep?
Is a repurposed Amazon-style “fulfillment center” full of plants shipped in from elsewhere a farm?
Is a roped off back bay channel full of trapped coastal running fish be considered a farm? (This one has been universally decided.)
Is a lab growing slabs of animal flesh a farm?
Is a protected woodlot a where nothing can be harvested a farm?
If we step back and invert those questions (“Should a farm be considered a farm if it consists entirely of a petting zoo?”) we can begin to understand how members of the public who do not have a grounding in agriculture become confused when we tell them one property or another should have “Right to Farm” protection.
These questions regarding how the public views what we call farms get more complex each year, as farms become both more important to our food-production system, and thus our survival, and more enmeshed in where they factor into issues like climate change and improved nutrition.
Even within our industry, you won’t find unanimous opinion on questions like, “How many Special Occasion Events should be permitted on preserved farms where the development rights have been deed-restricted to safeguard and not take over agricultural production as the primary focus?” or “What incentives can government offer to help farmers reduce carbon emissions without reducing their ability to continue succeeding as businesses?”
In these winter months when most farms in our state experience some respite from the hustle and bustle of planting, tending, and harvesting, we have some time to think longer and deeper about these larger issues.
That’s why “winter meetings” like the New Jersey Farm Bureau Convention that just occurred and the upcoming New Jersey State Agricultural Convention are more than just an exercise in reviewing how the most recent agricultural seasons went.
These are times to think about and discuss where New Jersey agriculture goes on these crucial long-term issues that relate to our mission in agriculture and our out-facing messaging to all who have a hand in shaping the farmer’s destiny, from policy to production and ultimately to demand.
It seems to me that we must be ever-vigilant in promoting some general guiding principles that will help maintain the public’s high regard for our farming families and the agricultural products being produced by them.
However, in reality, it cannot be everything, because if we expect that to happen, public support will deteriorate and the pendulum will swing the other way.