Do you like local, fresh produce? Phil Murphy and his friends are hard at work to make sure it
becomes a distant, fading, memory. Farmers across America are bleeding themselves dry to compete with highly subsidized Mexican and Canadian produce, and both the Biden
Administration and Governor Murphy sit on the sidelines, in the name of “free trade” and
globalism. Let’s be clear: what’s happening isn’t free trade, it’s highway robbery.
Democrats in power are destroying New Jersey farms, and if we don’t fight back now we can kiss locally grown produce, and our status as the Garden State, goodbye.
Meet Joe Esposito, a 4th generation farmer in Camden County who is hard at work right now to
ensure his sons become successful 5th generation farmers. He started planting blackberries
nine years ago, providing New Jersey families with locally sourced, high quality produce.
Cut to only six days into the six week picking season, and Joe has to destroy over 16,000 boxes
of ripe, delicious blackberries because the United States is importing millions of boxes of
blackberries from Mexico and Canada, at a fraction of the price that any American farm can
possibly compete with. Democrats like Phil Murphy might disguise it as laissez-faire government
policy, but this defense is dishonest when our governor is handing out billion dollar bailouts to
foreign-owned wind farms to satiate his green energy pipe dream, or $58 million to a French Art
Museum. Nothing for farmers, because they aren’t members of Phil Murphy’s preferred circle.
Farmers are getting screwed by both federal and state politics: U.S. policy allows Mexico and
Canada to import highly subsidized produce, meaning grocery stores which purchase from the
lowest bidder no longer have any space on their shelves for homegrown produce that plays by
the rules. That’s right, foreign, weeks-old and pesticide-ridden swill is taking up shelf space that
locally grown, fresh New Jersey blackberries would otherwise occupy. Back in the 1980’s, the
state introduced Jersey Fresh to promote locally grown produce, but today’s politicians prefer
Mexican Moldy to Jersey Fresh.
I spoke with Joe a few weeks ago, and met him at his farm just last month to talk about the
catastrophic mismanagement of our nation’s and our state’s farms. He told me that outside of a
few disparate lobbying groups, farmers have no unified voice to appeal to our elected leaders.
Now, our farmers need the protections that our governor is all too eager to dish out to
foreign-owned wind farms and art. That means we get welfare for Phil Murphy’s energy pipe
dream and ritzy museums, and the cold shoulder for farmers and New Jersey consumers.
When I met Joe, he shared a box of the blackberries that his government doomed to rot. It was
tremendous, they were the best blackberries I’ve had the pleasure of eating. Why are we
importing underripe, old blackberries from foreign countries when these beauties are right here?
Joe’s passion is feeding people. If you could have seen the smile on his face when I tasted his
produce, you could see that as well as I can. Our government’s abject failure or, more likely,
intentional abdication to protect American farmers means he has to mow over blackberry
bushes, destroying six years of growth, to plant sweet potatoes.
And sweet potatoes, while delicious, don’t make as many smiles as blackberries.
Joe isn’t the only farmer who can’t even move produce: from blackberries to strawberries to
apples, American farmers are being bled dry to satiate some high ideal of “free trade” with
Mexico and Canada. Our government is burning American farms to the ground to make their
foreign buddies in office happy, and they expect us to take it.
Local New Jersey farmers were there for us through the many supply chain disruptions of the
past few years. Joe gave up his crop to plant romaine and greenleaf when California was
ravaged by floods so New Jerseyans could enjoy their salads with dinner. Now New Jersey’s
politicians are pissing on that goodwill. If things don’t change soon you can kiss locally grown,
fresh produce goodbye.
Imagine what New Jersey’s farmers could do with the billions of dollars that Phil Murphy is
happy to send to foreign companies. Our farmers certainly wouldn’t be burning thousands of
boxes of produce, and New Jersey consumers would have better food at their local grocery
store.
If our motto is going to continue to be “The Garden State,” we cannot deny that promise to our
farmers. Governor Murphy has no plan to help our farmers. As Joe told me: “There comes a
time when you have to take care of us too.”
It’s time to take care of our farmers, not foreign billionaires.
