New Jersey farmers perceive a new threat to their livelihoods, only this time it's not weather or commodity price related.

Governor Jon S. Corzine is planning to eliminate the State Department of Agriculture as part of his "budget-balancing plan," a move that has New Jersey farmers on the defense.

Sure, farmers make up a tiny percentage of the state's workforce (just one half of one percent), but their products are worth almost $1 billion in sales each year. Even so, money isn't at the heart of their argument for keeping a Department of Agriculture. Farmers who bemoan Corzine's move argue that New Jersey farmers deserve appropriate representation in the State House for the same reason behind cutting it: because there are so few of them. And there's no disputing this point.

Perhaps this decision was to be expected given the huge decrease in New Jersey farmers over the years, with only 3,000 farmers currently working 17 percent of the state's land. (There were an additional 30,000 farmers working more than half the state's land in the late 19th century.) Of course, this trend is not unique to New Jersey. Across the nation, farmers are getting older and leaving the land not to young, aspiring farmers, but to existing farmers (and even corporations) seeking to get ever bigger.

Yet eliminating New Jersey's State Department of Agriculture threatens to fuel this disheartening trend further. How can we expect farmers to fight for a strong food and agriculture system if we're not willing to fight for them?

Source: The New York Times

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