Peter can add posts here in a chronological order. We can make it so ONLY logged in members can see it.
New Jersey Farm Bureau got busy this lame duck session. Here’s how we’ve helped bolster New Jersey agriculture in the first month of 2026.
You can read the text of any of these bills by visiting https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/ and searching the listed bill numbers under the 2024-2025 Legislative Session.
Brandon Raso, of Atlantic County, New Jersey, has been selected as a national winner in the 2026 National Outstanding Young Farmer Awards Convention (OFA), which will be celebrated the first week of February in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Brandon Raso, recipient of the Outstanding Young Farmer Award, was honored during the 2026 New Jersey State Agricultural Convention for this accomplishment. Brandon was awarded due to his dedication to agriculture as a new generation farmer in the New Jersey blueberry industry, successfully operating an approximate 800 acres of blueberries and producing between 3.5 to 5 million pounds each year.
TRENTON, N.J. — On January 20, 2026, Governor Phil Murphy signed the New Jersey Invasive Species Management Act into law. The new law establishes a comprehensive framework and creates a permanent New Jersey Invasive Species Council to guide science-based policy, education, and management statewide. It restricts the unregulated sale, distribution, import, export, and propagation of designated invasive species while giving nurseries, growers, land managers, and municipalities realistic timelines to comply.
Twenty-two years in the making, grassroots advocates, scientists, and industry professionals changed New Jersey law. This legislation represents years of the tireless dedication of boots-on-the-groundwork by people who understood that New Jersey’s forests, waterways, and farmland were being systematically degraded by invasive species.
Click here to read more about the long history of invasive species legislation.
Want to know what your New Jersey Farm Bureau has done in the last year?
On the Tuesday NJFB tour, the group started off at Riverbed Farm. This aquaponics operation sits in the heart of Anaheim and helps contribute fresh and nutritious produce to those in need. This unique urban agricultural landscape was a great way for our farmers to see what it means to be an urban farmer and how small plots contribute meaningfully to the agricultural community in the state.
On the trade show floor, Gripp hosted an information session titled From Chaos to Control: Modernizing Farm Communication, which described the bottlenecks that arise from poor communication on farm and the need to streamline communications systems to one centralized platform. Communication is at the heart of any business; ensuring there are no breaks in the on-farm communication chain is critical. When one person is equipped with the tools to do technology-related work, etc., the lack of tribal knowledge by the rest of the staff can lead to inefficiencies. Sharing this tribal knowledge is the key to being effective as a farm enterprise.
