HOPEWELL TWP.: Jersey girl continues to blossom, wins national honor

By Frank Mustac, Special Writer
Maybe it’s because Hopewell Valley farmer Jess Niederer grows 40 different kinds of organic vegetables and fruits on 17 acres in town that she was selected by the National Outstanding Young Farmers of America as one of four national winners for 2016.
Or maybe it is because she can fix a tractor all on her own, or that she is the owner of a trusty dog named Tilly.
Officially, however, Ms. Niederer was honored based on progress in her agricultural career, conservation practices and contributions to her community, state and nation.
Ms. Niederer, who goes by the nickname Jess, she was recognized for her achievement at the 60th annual National Outstanding Young Farmers awards congress in Cincinnati on Feb. 13.
State Secretary of Agriculture Douglas Fisher was at her Chickadee Creek Farm on Titus Mill Road in October to recognize the 31-year-old agriculturist for earning the award as New Jersey’s Outstanding Young Farmer.
“To be able to be an organic farmer and be successful is a tribute to you and a tribute to the people who work with you, and to your leadership. You are one of the hardest-working farmers I’ve ever met,” Mr. Fisher said to Ms. Niederer.
Having been born into a family that has raised crops in Hopewell Valley since 1910, and having grown up on the land she now cultivates, may have something to do with why Ms. Niederer chose farming as a career after graduating from Cornell University with a degree in natural resources.
As a youngster, Ms. Niederer witnessed her father grow soybeans, wheat and straw and her mother run an eight-stall horse boarding operation.
Ms. Niederer traveled throughout the United States and Latin America for her studies. After graduation, she spent two years on a 60-acre organic vegetable farm, first as a greenhouse manager and later as assistant field manager. Finally, she came home.
“Farming is a really a wonderful way to work outside, work for yourself and have an ever-changing list of tasks to do every day,” she said. “I can be a mechanic one day, an accountant another day, a human resources person, an ecologist, an entomologist and agronomist — and that’s all wrapped up into one job. So, it’s a really fascinating thing to do. Plus you get to feed your community, and that’s wonderful.”
Chickadee Creek Farm employs five workers, all “young women,” said Ms. Niederer, who leases the 17 acres she works from her father, whose total 80-plus-acre tract is permanently preserved.
“This farm has been in the family for three generations,” said Ms. Niederer, explaining she never would have been able run her farm profitably had it not received preservation status.
“Everything from arugula to zucchini,” she said, are the certified-organic crops she has been growing and selling for eight years now. They include familiar vegetables like broccoli, carrots and onions, and perhaps not-so-familiar watermelon radishes, broccoli leaves and tatsoi — a kind of Chinese cabbage with glossy dark green leaves.
“We do all direct-to-consumer sales — just farmer’s markets. We also dabble in restaurants,” she said.
Chickadee Creek Farm sells year-round to walk-up customers and members of its community supported agriculture program at farm markets in Pennington, Princeton, Montgomery, New Brunswick, Denville and Westfield.
“Last year (2014), there was only one week that we didn’t manage to sell produce to our customers,” Ms. Niederer said. During winter, her farm mostly sells to CSA members.
Operations on her farm, she said, are by no means high tech but are “fairly mechanized” using vintage equipment.
“None of it is new. A lot of our tractors and implements are from the 1960s and ’70s, which is fantastic for me, because I can fix them,” Ms. Niederer said. “Everything we have on this farm can be fixed with wrenches and screwdrivers.”
As well as being a dedicated farmer, Ms. Niederer enjoys giving back to the community. In 2014 she was voted the “Local Hero” by Edible Jersey readers in the farm/ farmer category.
In the community, Ms. Niederer is an active member of the Mercer County Board of Agriculture, teaches classes on organic farming through the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey and volunteers as an EMT in slower months.
At times she can be found speaking to school children about growing food.
“We often go into elementary schools to talk about farming to the students and do tastings of fresh vegetables,” she said. “We try to get them hooked on good eating early.”
In addition to the rapid, yet debt-free, growth of her business, Ms. Niederer was chosen as a national winner because of agricultural practices that conserve water and improve soil, such as micro-irrigation, contour farming, cover cropping and applications of compost.
The NOYF program is the oldest farmer recognition program in the United States, selecting its first group of national winners in 1955.
National winners received a savings bond gift from John Deere and the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C., during National Ag Week in 2017 to represent the NOYF program.