This law was supposed to help the real farmers. Instead, the money is going to all these people who don't make their primary living from farming. From the street, Rockwell's Christmas trees are harder to see than his boats. The knee-high white pine seedlings planted in the clay soil keep dying, Teresa Rockwell complained. A few rows of fruit trees and birch trees are doing better.
Environmentalists say New Jersey's farmland tax break program is also flawed on a grander scale.
Developers can buy large tracts of land and pay low taxes on it. They lease it to farmers. And then, when the market is ripe, developers convert the land to houses. When farmland is developed, New Jersey imposes a penalty, but it is weaker than most other states. The state fines developers for three years of taxes at the higher residential rate.