FDU Poll Finds NJ Voters Say Farming Central to NJ Economy

79% oppose seizing land for affordable housing; NJ Fresh seen as safe 

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, September 10, 2025 – Even as farmers nationwide face new challenges, New Jersey voters say that a strong farming industry is vital to the health of the state, with 64 percent of voters from across the political spectrum saying that agriculture is “very important” to the economy. According to the latest results from the FDU Poll prepared in collaboration with the New Jersey Farm Bureau, an overwhelming majority – 79 percent – also oppose seizing farmland for use in affordable housing projects.

“New Jersey has evolved since our origins as the breadbasket of New York and Philadelphia,” said Dan Cassino, Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the Executive Director of the FDU Poll. “But people here still see farming as being an important part of what the state has.”

While partisan divisions define most political and social issues in New Jersey and nationwide, there are no such divisions to be found in the views of agriculture. Sixty-five percent of Democrats say that farming is “very important” to the health of the state, little different from that 70 percent of Republicans or 59 percent of independents who say that same. “Agriculture’s bipartisan appeal should be appreciated as we head toward the upcoming state elections in November,” said Farm Bureau President Allen Carter.

Still, there are some differences based on region and age. Voters in the northwestern part of the state are the most likely to say that farming is “very important” (72 percent), while those in the urban core counties are the least likely (55 percent) to do so. Similarly, older voters are rather more likely to say that farming is “very important” (74 percent for voters 65 and over) than younger voters (48 percent for voters 30 and under).

The perceived importance of farming by New Jerseyans is virtually unchanged from 2016 when the same question was asked in a joint FDU – New Jersey Farm Bureau poll. In that poll, 95 percent said the farming industry was “somewhat” or “very” important to the state’s economy, no different than the 94 percent saying so in the current poll.

New Jersey residents also oppose farmland being taken by municipalities via eminent domain in order to build affordable housing. This issue came to public attention recently after a public outcry in Cranbury Township (Middlesex County) when the town designated a working historic farm as an affordable housing site. Seventy-nine percent of voters in the state say that municipalities should not be able to take farmland for such purposes, with only 13 percent saying that it should be allowed. Opposition was equally high among Democrats (78 percent) and Republicans (82 percent).

“Building more affordable housing is already a tricky issue in New Jersey,” said Cassino. “But even if voters want more housing, they’re not willing to let farmland be taken in order to get it.”

The FDU Poll also collaborated with the NJFB on other questions in a poll conducted earlier this year. One asked respondents about the safety of the food they buy, while another asked about food insecurity. Seventy-six percent of voters say that they are “very confident” or “somewhat confident” that the fruits and vegetables they buy at the store are safe to eat. “This finding affirms the message contained in the state’s Jersey Fresh promotion program,” said the Farm Bureau president. Another question tested the level of food insecurity among New Jersey households. More than a third of New Jersey voters (37 percent) say that they have struggled with being able to feed their families over the past year. Younger voters are more likely to have struggled with the cost of food than older voters.

“The cost of food has always been a concern.  Even in a state as wealthy as New Jersey, food insecurity is a concern among many New Jerseyans,” said Liz Thompson, the executive director of Farm Bureau. NJFB President Allen Carter notes that New Jersey’s state budget contains funds to purchase produce from local farmers, for distribution to those in need via food banks and a network of soup kitchens and food pantries. “New Jersey has dedicated an increasing amount of funds for this purpose in recent years, and the federal USDA should do likewise,” said Carter.

The NJ Farm Bureau and the FDU Poll have collaborated on polling key agricultural issues on a continuous basis for more than twenty years. The research has consistently documented the popular support in New Jersey for farmers and farming, and has provided vital input to Farm Bureau’s work as the voice of agriculture in the legislature and in local policy.

Methodology

The FDU Poll is a proud member of the AAPOR Transparency Initiative and is devoted to ensuring that our results are presented in such a way that anyone can quickly and easily get all of the information that they may need to evaluate the validity of our surveys. We believe that transparency is the key to building trust in the work of high-quality public opinion research, and necessary to push our industry forward.

The survey was conducted between July 17 and 23, 2025, using a voter list of registered voters in New Jersey carried out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Contact attempts were limited to registered voters who had voted in one or both of the last two NJ gubernatorial elections or were newly registered since the last NJ gubernatorial election. These respondents were considered likely voters if they met these criteria and said that they intended to vote in November’s gubernatorial election.

Respondents were contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 806 registered voters in the state. Surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews to landlines (282) and cellphones (82) and the remainder (442) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones. Surveys were conducted only in English.

The data were weighted to be representative of the population of registered voters in New Jersey. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education and race/ethnicity.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.2, largely driven by the weights used on the race/ethnicity variable.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 806 registered voters is +/-3.4 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-3.9 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

806 Likely Voters in New Jersey

Figures do not include individuals who declined to answer demographic items.

Man                                

47%                 N = 375
Woman                            

51%                 N = 414
Some Other Way          

1%                  N = 6

18-30                          

16%                N = 128
31-44                          

22%                 N = 179
45-64                          

32%                 N = 262
65+                              

30%                 N = 237

White                                           

68%                N = 550
Black                                              

12%                N = 95
Hispanic/Latino/a                         

            12%                N = 96
Asian                                       

3%                  N = 25
MENA                                      

2%                  N = 12
Other/Multi-racial                                    

3%                  N = 27

No college degree                      

57%                N = 458
College degree or more             

42%                N = 334

Democrat (including leaners)    

45%                N = 324
Independent (no lean)                

16%                N = 115
Republican (including leaners)  

38%                N = 272

Question Wording and Order

NJFB1. In your opinion, how important is a strong farming industry to the overall economic health of New Jersey?

1. Very Important
2. Somewhat Important
3. Not Nery Important
4. Not Important at All
5. DK/Ref [vol]

NJFB2. There has been a lot of discussion recently about municipalities using eminent domain to take farmland in order to build affordable housing, even if the farmer doesn’t want to sell. What do you think? Should municipalities be permitted to take farmland to build affordable housing, or not?

1. Should be able to take farmland
2. Should not be able to take farmland
3. Not Sure [Vol]
4. DK/Ref [vol]

March Farm Bureau Items

FB1. How confident are you that the fruits and vegetables you see at the store are safe to eat?

1. Very Confident
2. Somewhat Confident
3. Not Very Confident
4. Not At All Confident
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

FB4. These days, many American families are having trouble affording the food that they need to feed themselves or their families. How about you? In the last twelve months, have there been times when you have struggled to afford to feed your family?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

Release Tables

Media Contacts:                           

Liz Thompson,

Executive Director, NJ Farm Bureau

(609-393-7163)/lizt@njfb.org

Rich Higginson

Director of Consumer Research, FDU Poll   

908-763-0857/ rjh81@fdu.edu