Monroe Township (Gloucester County), NJ Right to Farm: Farm Nuisance Protection (2026)

In § 175-90(A) the Township Council declared that agricultural activities serve the citizens of Monroe Township through social, economic and environmental benefits, and made it township policy to protect agricultural operations from nuisance action where recognized methods and techniques of agricultural production are applied.

Subsection B lists what a landowner using land for agricultural or horticultural purposes can do, in accordance with zoning district regulations: produce crops, trees, forest products, livestock and poultry; package the output; market it wholesale and retail, including building and parking areas built to Township standards; replenish soil nutrients; control pests, predators and diseases; clear woodlands using open-burning and other techniques; and dispose of organic agricultural waste on site.

The protection depends on Subsection C. All agricultural and fish and wildlife management activities must follow the recommended management practices set by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, the Soil Conservation Service and the New Jersey Agricultural Experimental Station at Rutgers University. In Agricultural Production Districts, where an agency has designated an area as having substandard surface water or groundwater as a direct result of agricultural uses, a Resource Conservation Plan must be prepared by, or reviewed and approved by, the appropriate Soil Conservation District. C(3) adds that the practices developed under Section 5 of the Right to Farm Act (P.L. 1983, c. 31) become the standards once the State Agricultural Development Committee recommends them, to the extent they supersede C(1) and (2).

Subsection D(2) extends the same presumption to operations conducted or located within a municipally approved program, and Subsection F defines that term by reference to the Agriculture Retention and Development Act (P.L. 1983, c. 32), as implemented by the County Agriculture Development Board or a subregional board. Subsection E separately sets building distances, poultry limits and livestock numbers, covered on the chickens and livestock page.