Farmland Preservation

Farmland Preservation

Farmland Preservation is something that every person in New Jersey should be aware of. Our Garden State is quickly becoming too populated to hold such a title anymore. As more and more farms disappear, we are losing the precious land and culture, which initially made so many people decide to make New Jersey home. Everyone seems to want to move to the country and away from the city, but soon New Jersey may no longer have the attractive countryside landscape it was once so well known for. The people of New Jersey need to be made aware of what is happening to the landscape and need to realize what their individual impact is on that landscape.

The Farmland Preservation Program was officially established with the Agricultural Retention Act of 1983 and the Right to Farm Act of 1983 (1). The program is administered by the State Agricultural Development Committee (SADC), which consists of eleven members all representing the state and general public’s interests on several levels including, agriculture and the environment (1). The main objective of the program is to try and protect farmland from development, whether it is a short time or long time effect. The program buys the development rights from the farmers so as to try and ease the pressure put on them from developers to sell the land entirely to be broken up and developed.

Farmland in general has so many benefits for both the farmer and the general public to consider. It is part of our culture here in New Jersey, in fact 75% of the US public agrees that, “Protecting the environment is so important that requirements and standards cannot be too high” (4). Now, that is a lot of people who are in agreement but now maybe they need to be made aware what they can do to help and what it takes to agree with that statement and mean it.

Farms contribute in a big way to the American Dream and the quality of life people assume when they say they want to “ move out the country”.