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Ag Secretary Jumps Into Fight for NJ Family Farm – HotAir

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June 19, 2025
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Ag Secretary Jumps Into Fight for NJ Family Farm – HotAir

I know a lot of you saw this story I had in the headlines last Friday because WOOF.

Weren’t the comments enfuego?!

For those of you who didn’t, here’s a quick recap, and I guarantee, it’ll frost your shorts.





City Gov to Seize 175-Year-Old Farm by Eminent Domain, Replace with Affordable Housing

Family fights township attempts to replace historic farm with government project

For three decades, Andy Henry has declined $20-30 million offers for his 21-acre, 175-year-old farm. Ironically, local government is using his perseverance to take the entire property via eminent domain and replace pasture with affordable housing.

Grass for concrete? Legacy surrendered? No deal, Henry says. Period. Full stop.

On South River Road, in Middlesex County, N.J., warehouses and industrial buildings have replaced the once abundant farms of yesteryear—except a lone holdout.

“My family sacrificed on this land for 175 years,” Henry adds. “All the other farms disappeared. We did not. We will not.”

As the article explains, Henry lives in New Mexico, but the family has kept the farm up and leases it as a farm. Henry comes back to NJ frequently to check on the property.

…“Our farm in now leased for raising cattle and sheep. The town loves driving by and seeing something besides warehouses. Keeping this legacy intact and passing it to the next generation has been, and is always, our plan.”

Cranbury Township Committee also has a plan: Cover Henry’s farm with housing units.

On April 24, 2025, Henry’s mailbox clinked with an official letter of notice from the Committee, tagging his farm as an affordable housing site. “It was incredibly stunning,” he says. “The letter said if I didn’t agree on a price—they’d take my land by eminent domain.”

Sell, or else.

Standing on Principle
On May 12, the Committee officially approved a plan to take the Henry family farm. Timothy Duggan, an eminent domain specialist and attorney representing Henry, says the Committee’s intentions are “misguided and rushed.”





Holy smokes, didn’t this thing just explode the second people heard about it.

One of the larger NJ-based X accounts put Cranbury Township on full blast. And let’s be honest – it’s not like there’s so much farmland left in the state that no one will miss it if they snag up one or two here to there for some more concrete.

…Andy Henry, owner of his family’s farm on South River Road in Cranbury, said he has no intention of selling the land and plans to fight the township‘s plans to take it by eminent domain. 

“This farm represents exactly what this town prides itself on,” said Henry, whose great grandfather bought the land in 1850. “It has open space, rich history and a farmhouse. We just want to keep the farm in our family.”

The town is under the gun as far as state law goes to slap up enough ‘affordable housing’ to meet parameters the state has set for them, or else.

…In March 2024, the township began what became a yearlong process to identify sites that could help meet its affordable housing requirements, according to Cranbury Mayor Lisa Knierim.

By 2035, New Jersey towns must add or renovate over 146,000 affordable housing units, based on quotas calculated by the state. Under the Mount Laurel Doctrine, a series of state Supreme Court rulings, all New Jersey municipalities must provide their fair share of affordable housing for the region.

The requirements have sparked controversy, with some municipalities unsuccessfully suing the state over what they argue are unfair obligations to build affordable units.

Cranbury must allow developers to add 265 affordable housing units over the next 10 years, according to the state’s new calculations. And, by June 30, the township must submit its housing plan to the state.





That’s their excuse, and they’re sticking to it, especially when the town has to do hardly any legwork to take flat old farmland.

Or they were sticking to it.

Cranbury wasn’t prepared for the firestorm that hit them.

First, there were the heart-tugging appearances on local news stations, which didn’t exactly make the city look great.

Residents began to focus attention on the elected officials in Cranbury who had made this decision.

Local talk shows even had the former mayor of Cranbury in to bash the current council.





The story I linked to first above was featured in a major agricultural newsletter for Farm Journal’s Ag-Web, which got its readers fired up nationwide.

And then @WakeUpNJ’s Xweets on X started garnering attention.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins took one look and jumped in to find out what the heck was going on.

…On June 17, Rollins caught wind of the potential loss of Henry’s farm via an X post from @wakeupnj. On her personal X account, @BrookeLRollins, she responded: We hear you, and I am looking into this situation immediately. We must protect our family farms at all costs. Standby.

Shortly afterward, Rollins called Henry and posted on her USDA X account, @SecRollins (along with a repost on her personal account), citing an Agweb article, “City Gov to Seize 175-Year-Old Farm by Eminent Domain, Replace with Affordable Housing:”

Rollins updated it shortly thereafter that she was bringing in some additional firepower to save the family farm.

Cranbury Township must have had its hair on fire by this time, because suddenly Henry got a note that the powers that be have magnanimously decided he’ll get to keep his farmhouse and some nine acres. 

So shut up already, and drop all the unpleasantness, why doncha? 





Bizarre Update in New Jersey Farm Seizure as City Offers to Only Take Half of Farmer’s Land

The replacement of a 175-year-old farm with low-income housing just doglegged. In a nutshell: We’ll only take half your land and cover it with apartments. You’re welcome.

Highland Ranch, located in Cranbury, N.J., is targeted for seizure by eminent domain. Despite the farm’s continuous agriculture production since 1850, the Cranbury Township Committee initially intended to erect housing units across the operation’s 21 acres, and force owner Andy Henry to sell.

However, according to Henry, the Committee has had a change of heart, instead only targeting half the acreage for transition to concrete. The Committee’s new offer, says Henry, was disclosed on June 9, and would leave him with a farmhouse and 9 acres of pasture. He intends to fully contest the 9-acre offer.

Henry’s not falling for ‘only getting half of my own property’ in the tailpipe trick, so he and his legal team are telling the township to pee up a rope.

Besides, the whole scheme might not be kosher to begin with. 

…However, taking Henry’s land may be “constitutionally suspect,” contends Joshua Windham, senior attorney at Institute for Justice.

“The Fifth Amendment does allow the government to take property through eminent domain but there has to be a public use for that property,” Windham says. “The traditional way of thinking about public use is a park, a highway or a right of way for a railroad that the public is going to be able to access. Of course, the government has a role in our modern economy in providing welfare to people but something like public housing strikes me as a little bit odd. To say it is a public use to take property from one person and just sort of give it to other people strikes me as constitutionally suspect.”





Not to mention the Department of Agriculture weighing in on their side has to be heartening.

…On Tuesday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins weighed in on the dispute in a post on X, saying the federal Department of Agriculture was in contact with the Henrys and would support them in their legal fight.

“While this particular case is a city eminent domain issue, we at USDA are exploring every legal option to help,” Rollins said in the post.

The power of social media to make good things happen is so vastly underrated by us, and so terrifying to the powers used to operating unquestioned and unchallenged.

This sort of populist firestorm derailing progressive intent is precisely what Barack Obama is whining about in this clip here.

The Lightbringer and his authoritarian Brahmin class only want ‘all voices to be heard’ ONLY if they’re happily singing the words they wrote for the chorus.

Good luck with that.

We’ll sing about what’s wrong with the ruling elite ’til the cows come home. 

And if need be, to make sure the cows keep their home.

 







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