Craps, Slot Machines, and Heirloom Tomatoes
Welcome to the Vegetable Growers Association of New Jersey’s annual conference in Atlantic City.
If you’re here for advice on how to make a small fortune in farming: Start with a big one.
If you want to learn what’s on farmers minds: Here’s what we heard.
First, farmers don’t know who’s gonna pick their crops. Both H-2A and “Home Depot parking lot” workers are harder to find. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it’s left many farmers scratching their heads. Other labor is either too expensive or too few; equipment is either too expensive or ill-suited to delicate picking; and no one’s kids or grandkids want to farm anymore. Thus everyone’s between a rock and hard place, and no one knows what’s gonna give…
Second, DOGE. Why? Because now no one’s sure on the status of grant money. Such money — and a lot of it — flows into farming through State Agriculture and Health Departments. Such departments received questionnaires from their federal counterparts via OMB as DOGE tries to reduce waste. Interestingly, this panic has opened a bit of a schism among Ag participants: Some farmers are very upset, and others make the point that unit economics are king and grants are just “nice to have.” Still — everyone likes free money, and no one knows whether Uncle Sam still has money for ole John Deere.
And third, at least two State-run programs are still going ahead as planned and promising to funnel spending back into the State’s farmland. The first is NJDA’s Farm to School Program, which provides public schools with offsetting funds to purchase NJ grown and raised products. The second is the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program, administered by NJDA through its partner the Community Food Bank of New Jersey (CFBNJ). This program promises to reimburse NJ farmers at wholesale rates and get food to needy families in all 21 counties. Both programs — with the potential for meaningful sales volumes — have attracted lots of attention and questions.
Much more was discussed — Spotted Winged Drosophila, drones, and laser weeders to name a few — and as always everyone traded thoughts on the next big opportunity.
One such opportunity: Yeoman USA.
LLTF (Long Live the Farmer).