In his letter to the Governor, Brown
indicated that he would assume a faculty position at Cook College,
Rutgers University, in New Brunswick some time in 2002. Brown also
noted that the agriculture industry in the Garden State has made
significant strides in the past 20 years and thanked the Administration
and the State Legislature for their strong support of the industry. "When
I became Secretary of Agriculture in 1982, I had a mental list of
accomplishments or contributions that I hoped to make to our ag industry
to encourage its economic viability," Brown said. "The list included
improvements in marketing locally-grown agricultural items, saving
productive farmland for future generations, enhancing programs to
conserve soil and water on farms, and protecting our animal and plant
resources from devastating diseases and pests. I think I've managed
to meet my personal goals in all these areas." Brown's leadership
under four Governors has kept the industry vital and thriving. Despite
being the most urban state in the nation, New Jersey's strong agriculture
industry, has maintained a progressive, adaptive character. With
nursery and greenhouse production topping the list of New Jersey's
agricultural products, the state ranks third in the Northeast in
agricultural production and annually ranks in the top 10 nationally
in the production of a number of fruits and vegetables. One key to
the Garden State's agricultural success is the award-winning Jersey
Fresh marketing and promotion program Brown developed which has become
the model that many states are still trying to emulate. Its umbrella
covers every facet of the state's nearly $1 billion production agriculture
sector. "It's important to remember that the Jersey Fresh program
does more than promote fruits and vegetables," Brown said, "it promotes
the Garden State as a great place to live, work and raise a family
and that's an image we can all be proud of." In addition, he has
worked tirelessly to expand foreign markets for New Jersey products,
raising the amount of exports from less than $42 million 1980 to
over $150 million this year. In a state faced with the loss of farmland
due to development, Brown also nurtured the State Farmland Preservation
Program, created in 1981. He was instrumental in the passage in 1998
of legislation creating the Garden State Preservation Trust Fund,
a constitutionally-dedicated source of funding for farmland and open
space preservation. Brown has also fostered faster preservation of
farms in the Pinelands, one of New Jersey's most productive agricultural
areas. In the late 1980s, Brown helped to create the Agriculture
Economic Reinvestment and Development Initiative (AERDI), which made
nearly $20 million in matching grants available to thousands of farmers
statewide, providing a critically-needed source of capital funds
at a crucial time for the industry. An important companion program
to AERDI was the $3 million Business Energy Improvement Farm Grants
which NJDA helped the Board of Public Utilities to fund in 1998.
In 1999, with New Jersey in the grip of the third worst drought of
the century, Brown worked with state legislative leaders and the
Governor to develop a $20 million disaster relief package to support
those farmers whose crops were decimated by weather. Brown strongly
advocated measures to help the fledgling aquaculture industry, resulting
in the passage of the New Jersey Aquaculture Development Act in 1997.
The legislation gave NJDA the lead in promoting and developing a
state aquaculture industry not only to supplement other agricultural
crops produced in New Jersey but also to help fill the growing gap
between seafood demand and wild harvest. Brown has also developed
innovative state/federal partnerships to strengthen agricultural
soil and water conservation programs, including cost-sharing programs
to help agricultural producers meet a variety of natural resource
and environmental challenges. Brown took the lead in the creation
and development of the Horse Park of New Jersey at Stone Tavern in
Monmouth County, a unique equine exhibition and competition venue.
Under its public/private management partnership, the facility has
become one of the finest on the East Coast, drawing competitors from
around the nation and the world. Under Brown's direction, NJDA's
Beneficial Insect Lab in Ewing, Mercer County, opened in 1985, has
become recognized as a national leader in the biological control
of a number of plant and forest pests and diseases. He also authorized
the switch from the chemical Sevin for state's gypsy moth control
program to the biological pesticide, B.t., an equally-effective,
environmentally-friendlier control. He has also supported efforts
to promote the state's $86 million dairy and livestock industries
and protect the state's livestock from a variety of foreign and domestic
animal diseases, including avian influenza, Johne's disease, Eastern
equine encephalitis, and, more recently, West Nile virus, foot-and-mouth
disease and "mad cow" disease. Among the other accomplishments realized
during Brown's tenure were the strengthening of the state Right to
Farm Act, the law that protects responsible farmers from unnecessary
government restrictions and nuisance legal actions, and to the Farmland
Assessment Act, which provides for taxation based on the agricultural
use of the land. In addition, he worked with the agriculture community
to establish the continuing New Jersey Agricultural Leadership Development
Program, the extremely successful Farmers Against Hunger food recovery
initiative and the greenhouse film recycling effort, all of which
have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of non-farmers and
made New Jersey a better place to live. Brown engineered the relocation
of the State FFA program to NJDA from the state Department of Education
(DOE). The move made NJDA the first state agriculture department
in the nation to become home to the youth organization. Since the
relocation, the organization has added hundreds of new members and
chartered five new chapters, including several in the state's most
urban areas. NJDA also welcomed the Bureau of Child Nutrition's relocation
from DOE, a change that brought all state food and commodity distribution
programs under NJDA's roof, making the agency one of a few in the
nation to centralize similar efforts in a state agriculture department.
As a result, the national School Lunch Program and the federal School
Breakfast Program have received heightened publicity to the benefit
of some of the Garden State's youngest residents. Born in Fulton,
New York and raised on a Massachusetts dairy farm, Brown worked in
the agriculture industry and for 11 years as the Atlantic County
agriculture agent, attaining professorship at Cook College before
being named Secretary of Agriculture. With a bachelor of science
degree in animal science from the University of Massachusetts in
hand Brown earned a master's degree in horticulture from Cook College,
Rutgers University in 1977. A member of the National Association
of State Departments of Agriculture and of the United States Department
of Agriculture's Census Advisory Committee, Brown currently serves
as chairman both the New Jersey State Agriculture Development Committee
and the State Soil Conservation Committee and as a member of the
Garden State Preservation Trust. He is also a trustee of the Southern
New Jersey Development Council and Chairman of the Aquaculture Advisory
Council. In 2001 he was named to the Farm Credit Regional Council
as a representative of the Northeastern states. In 1999 he was elected
president of Food Export USA/Northeast (formerly EUSAFEC); appointed
by then Governor Christie Whitman as a member of the Northeast Interstate
Compact Commission; named to the United States Department of Agriculture's
Advisory Committee on Agriculture Statistics; and inducted into the
New Jersey Nursery & Landscape Association's Hall of Fame. He
is a member of the Board of Managers of the New Jersey Agricultural
Experiment Station, and a member of the New Jersey Agricultural Society,
the New Jersey Agriculture Museum, the New Jersey District Export
Council of the United States Department of Commerce, the National
Association of State Departments of Agriculture and the New Jersey
State Planning Commission. Formerly, Brown served on the National
Commission on Agriculture and Rural Development Policy; as past president
and executive board member of the National Association of State Departments
of Agriculture; as past president of the Northeastern Association
of State Departments of Agriculture and the Eastern United States
Agricultural and Food Export Council; on the board of directors of
the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association; as member of the
United States Department of Environmental Protection's State/EPA
Operations Committee; and on the United States Department of Agriculture's
Advisory Committee on Swine Health Protection. Brown has received
the National Future Farmers of America's highest honor, the Honorary
American Farmer Degree; the Southern New Jersey Development Council's
Statesman Award; and the Golden Flower Award from the New Jersey
State Florists Association and the New Jersey Plant and Flower Growers
Association; and the New Jersey Education Association's 1996 Leadership
Award. He was named the 1995 Horseman of the Year by the New Jersey
Horse Council and he received the President's Award from the US Harness
Writers Association in 1996. In 2001 he was named Horseperson of
the Year by the New Jersey Equine Advisory Board. In 2000, Brown
received the New Jersey Agricultural Society's Gold Medallion Award
for service to the industry, Distinguished Service Awards from both
the Essex County and Cape May County Boards of Agriculture, and the
New Jersey Farm Bureau's Distinguished Service to New Jersey Agriculture
Award.
The State Board of Agriculture, an
eight-member body created by statute which serves as the policy-making
and general head of NJDA, is responsible for appointing the Secretary
of Agriculture, with the approval of the Governor. The search for
Brown's replacement will begin shortly.