For years, the state agriculture department was a backwater. But all that has changed. Agriculture Secretary Arthur Brown said Tittel, the Audubon Society and the New Jersey Environmental Federation have complained because farmers got a larger share of open space money, under Whitman's proposal, than they have in the past. We've made adjustments from Day One,'' said Brown. The program pays farmers not to build houses on their land, giving them the amount of money they might get from a developer.
Farmers continue to own the land, but they can only use it for agriculture.
Nothing is wrong with the farmland preservation program, Brown maintained. He said New Jersey uses cost controls similar to other states' programs, with an exhaustive system of land appraisals and committee reviews that evaluate farms before they are preserved with public funds. Appraising the appraisers But in Burlington County, the same two appraisers, Harry Renwick and Joseph Manzi, have judged the value of most of the farms. Each farm preservation requires two appraisals. Since 1988, Burlington County has preserved 70 farms.