From the Gloucester Times:
Local journalist tracks future of N.J. farming
By Jessica Beym
As housing developments sprout on farms and silos turn into smokestacks, Jerseyans are left to wonder:
Can New Jersey still proudly bear the title of the Garden State?
Charles Harrison, a journalist from Woodstown, set out to answer that question in his book, “Tending the Garden State: Preserving Agriculture in New Jersey.”
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“You get a lot of negative or uninformed comments about New Jersey,” said Harrison, who teaches a magazine article writing course at Rowan University. “We’re the most urban state in the country. Our visitors fly into Newark or drive down the Turnpike, and that’s all they see. So I wanted to find out for myself what’s left of the garden state.”
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But with the cities of New York and Philadelphia as neighbors, the need for housing soared and farms began to disappear after World War II, Harrison said.For years, New Jersey’s southern counties — particularly Gloucester, Cumberland and Salem — stood their ground and kept farms from disappearing. It wasn’t until state highways 55 and 42 were built that the farmland of Washington Township was exposed to development, Harrison writes.
Since 1957, Washington Township’s 200 farms have shrunk to only two, while the population has skyrocketed from under 4,000 to today’s 50,000.
The problem, Harrison said, is that people need homes, developers need land to build them on, and when checks are waved in front of the farmers’ faces, they are faced with a tough question.
“It’s not that farmers are trying to get out – it’s a good business. But lots of farmers are finding out that their kids aren’t terribly interested in carrying on the family farming business,” Harrison said, adding that Duffield’s is one of the lucky, and the few.