Once it’s gone, it’s unlikely to return.

[dogg57]

Few resources in South Jersey are as important to this area as farmland.
Not only is farmland – open, fertile, tillable acreage – the driving force behind South Jersey’s vibrant agricultural economy, it’s also a defining component of the entire Garden State.
As open space, farmland is also an irreplaceable natural resource.
Once it’s gone, it’s unlikely to return.
Over the past two decades, however, the demand for housing in Gloucester County has turned centuries-old farm fields into residential developments, as McMansions and cookie-cutter tract homes vied for the attention of planning boards and town councils along with shopping malls and big-box stores.
To the south, in Salem and Cumberland counties, development has taken a toll on available open space, but hardly on the scale seen in Gloucester.
Current economic conditions have eased the pressure from residential and commercial developers who once were scrambling to buy up land, but – once the recession ends for good – preservationists warn that developers and land speculators will again be looking to buy up the remaining available open space on the East Coast – particularly along the busy Northeast corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C.
In other words, right here

http://www.nj.com/salem/index.ssf/2011/11/playing_the_fields_as_develope.html

 

[Boyd]

Driving around Salem and Cumberland Counties recently, I really get the feeling that it's the last frontier. There are still little towns that are basically undisturbed there, and very few developments. I really hope it can retain this character - it's quite unique for South Jersey. But I get the feeling it just won't last.

There's also a huge amount of acreage devoted to sand/mineral mining operations in Cumberland County. At some point that land will be more valuable to developers than the sand industry. I can see a nightmare scenario where "lake communities" spring up around all of the old sand pits.

Get out and see these places now while you still can. 10 or 20 years from now, you probably won't even recognize the Southwestern part of the state.

 

[trop81]

Driving around Salem and Cumberland Counties recently, I really get the feeling that it's the last frontier. There are still little towns that are basically undisturbed there, and very few developments. I really hope it can retain this character - it's quite unique for South Jersey. But I get the feeling it just won't last.

There's also a huge amount of acreage devoted to sand/mineral mining operations in Cumberland County. At some point that land will be more valuable to developers than the sand industry. I can see a nightmare scenario where "lake communities" spring up around all of the old sand pits.

Get out and see these places now while you still can. 10 or 20 years from now, you probably won't even recognize the Southwestern part of the state.

Driving around Salem and Cumberland Counties recently, I really get the feeling that it's the last frontier. There are still little towns that are basically undisturbed there, and very few developments. I really hope it can retain this character - it's quite unique for South Jersey. But I get the feeling it just won't last.

There's also a huge amount of acreage devoted to sand/mineral mining operations in Cumberland County. At some point that land will be more valuable to developers than the sand industry. I can see a nightmare scenario where "lake communities" spring up around all of the old sand pits.

Get out and see these places now while you still can. 10 or 20 years from now, you probably won't even recognize the Southwestern part of the state.

Boyd i totally agree with you. i have lived in south jersey all my life, and i have seen so much land being lost lost to housing .Its a shame I can't show my son places that i played in the woods, it's all housing now.

 

[Spung-Man]

Here, here,

Up at Rutgers Cook College, the old Ag School, I was taught that it took nature a thousand years to make one-inch of topsoil in the Garden State, and minutes to destroy it. The Garden State simply undervalues farmland. No other country in the world squanders this priceless resource like we do for short-term and shortsighted gain.

The Pinelands Commission Ecological-Integrity Assessment rates the value of farmland as zero, thereby totally discounting its significance to the Pinelands cultural ecology, or agricultural land's ability to easily return to a natural condition. By PC rationale, development, Smart Growth, and publicly-mandated redevelopment should be encouraged on Pinelands farmland.

This has already occurred with redevelopment zones being designated on agricultural land in Buena Vista Township and Buena Borough. While the land "in need of redevelopment" was not specifically in the Agricultural Production Area, it was productive farmland none the less. Everywhere else in State farmland is in theory valued as indicated below, and farmland preservation is encouraged.

"Smart Growth is the term used to describe well-planned, well-managed growth that adds new homes and creates new jobs, while preserving open space, farmland, and environmental resources."​

Remember, by MOU, there are no real laws governing Pinelands redevelopment. Public money must not be used towards the further destruction of farmland, as has already occurred here in the Pines.

S-M

 

[Boyd]

I suspect the situation could be even worse in the parts of Salem and Cumberland I'm thinking of, as they are not part of the Pinelands Preserve.

 

[Spung-Man]

Boyd,

You are right, loss of agricultural production land is a bigger problem outside the Pines, and certainly an unacceptable waste of a valuable resource wherever it occurs. We should be thankful that Mayor Cimprich is a preservationist, and not courting developers like other politicians. I just find it disturbing that ag-land preservation is an issue at all in the Pinelands National Reserve, a place where it shouldn't be. Conservation should be a given. For example, the Buena Borough MUA confiscated active farmland to create infiltration basins needed to support several Pinelands redevelopment projects. Fortunately, the Bridgeton Formation regolith was too dense to allow proper effluent percolation so after spending over a $1,000,000 on the project it was canned. Now the publicly-owned parcel will be converted to a solar panel site instead of being returned to agricultural production.

Mark

 

[manumuskin]

This is exactly why I'm against skeeter control.It's the only thing that keeps the speculators away,that and greenheads..You'd think the over regulation of this state would keep people from wanting to move here.If Global warming is real then the real estate down here isn't worth a whole lot.Fifty years and most of it will be marsh.