Pop's will never be on the market for builders

Barbara Byrne Schauer knows her parents would be proud.

ANDREW MILLER staff The Byrne Schauer farm in Monroe was entered into the Farmland Preservation Program on Monday. Pictured is David Byrne, 22, and state Secretary of Agriculture Charles Kuperus. The Monroe farm they owned going back to the 1920s will remain as such, and can never be developed. Its inclusion into the state Farmland Preservation Program was celebrated Monday morning during a press conference attended by family members along with state, county and township officials.

"Today is a shining example of sharing services, with all the different agencies working together," Mayor Richard Pucci said.

The 27-acre Cranbury Station Road farm, which includes Pop's Market, has been in the Byrne family since 1929. When Byrne Schauer's father died in 1942, her mother, a schoolteacher, struggled to hold on to the land by working and taking in fellow teachers as boarders.

After her mother's death in the 1980s, Byrne Schauer and her family also had to fight to hold on to the land, because of an inheritance tax of more than $300,000, Byrne Schauer's son, Tom, said.

Tom sits on the Middlesex County Board of Agriculture and the New Jersey Agricultural Society.

"If you had a program with more money available 30 years ago, you might have seen a very different landscape," Tom said. "[The land] disappears quick and it gets more expensive."

Now that Byrne Schauer's 10 children are grown, her son and grandson, both named David, have continued the family heritage of farming there. Growing fruits, vegetables and flowers to sell in Pop's Market, the enthusiastic farmers keep the business alive.

"I decided to retire," Byrne Schauer said.

Her son David had a different story.

"Only on paper," the elder David said. "We don't let her retire."

Byrne Schauer, who was born on the farm, sold a portion at the rear of the property when residential development was coming to surround it. Because farming would not have been compatible with houses so close by, the situation called for the sale, Byrne Schauer said.

After that, Byrne Schauer decided that no more of the land her family had toiled on for decades would be let go to developers.

"You get approached [with offers] constantly over the years," she said.

Close to five years ago, Byrne Schauer set the process in motion to have the farm included in the preservation program. Monday marked the official induction of the tract into the program, making it the ninth farm preserved in Monroe, and the 50th in Middlesex County.

"By working with the state and our municipal partners, the freeholder board has been able to place more than 3,300 acres into the county's farmland preservation program, thereby preserving Middlesex County's past and safeguarding open lands for the future," Freeholder Director David Crabiel said.

The total costs for the development rights of the farm were nearly $1.8 million. The state contributed $1.05 million; the county paid $356,166 and Monroe Township contributed $377,752.

New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Charles Kuperus arrived early to pick up some produce at Pop's Market. He told those in attendance about the "cheddar" cauliflower he discovered at the market, something he had never seen before.

"This is Jersey fresh, for sure," Kuperus said. "You can say it's Middlesex fresh. This farm is going to be an island of agriculture for these residents in perpetuity."

Kuperus commended Byrne Schauer's 22-year-old grandson, David, for choosing agriculture as his career path.

"In many ways, it's this generation's responsibility," Kuperus said.

Ed Wengryn of the New Jersey Farm Bureau encouraged voters to support further preservation of farmland and open space by answering yes to a Nov. 6 ballot question to approve funding for the Garden State Preservation Trust. With the trust's funds dwindling, he said, it is critical to approve monies that would help to continue preservation throughout the state.

Freeholder Camille Fernicola, liaison to the County Agriculture Development Board, said Byrne Schauer and other farmers are to be praised for their contribution to preservation by participating in the program.

"It is because of their love for the land and of farming that the rest of us have beautiful expanses of open lands, the opportunity to buy locally grown flowers, fruits and vegetables, and the ability to share with our children and grandchildren a special part of Middlesex County's history," Fernicola said.