Revisiting the Farm in “Duke Farms”: Seeding a New Community of Regenerative Graziers

If you’ve visited Duke Farms in the last few years, you’ve likely had the opportunity to encounter some of its wildlife—listening in on woodland concerts of birdsong or catching glimpses of our resident foxes and frogs—while out on the trail. But there are other denizens of ours that you probably have yet to meet, despite the important place they hold in our history and in our current work: our livestock.

Outside the stone walls of our core campus, we manage a small but growing beef cattle operation where we explore how to produce food sustainably while also conserving wildlife and their habitats. In many ways the root of Duke Farms, our cattle are vital ecosystem engineers of the grasslands they inhabit. Their impact on that land is the subject of transformative, long-term agroecology research, through which we're identifying innovative ways to use agriculture as a tool for ecological repair.

And thankfully, we're not acting alone. Last month, 24 New Jersey graziers gathered at Duke Farms to explore similar themes during Grazing School, a new initiative developed by North Jersey Resource Conservation & Development.

The State of Agriculture  

Despite its idyllic nickname, the "Garden State" doesn't immediately conjure thoughts of farming for most people. Yet in 2025, the state was estimated to have nearly 10,000 farm operations producing more than 100 different agricultural products. Beyond this remarkable diversity, New Jersey is also something of an agricultural powerhouse, ranking among the top ten producers nationally of blueberries, cranberries, peaches, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, spinach, and squash, despite its relatively small land area. 

But farming in the region does not come without challenges. Agricultural land is under mounting pressure from development, especially of data centers, affordable housing, and expanded infrastructure. This raises a question that grows more important each season: how can we produce the food needed to support current and future populations without threatening the ecosystem functions that underpin it all? New Jersey's population density, in fact the highest in the country, makes these competing demands particularly pronounced. It also makes our state the ideal place not only to investigate these questions, but to develop and test practical solutions.

Limited land access, high land costs, increasingly extreme weather, and the need for more in-person knowledge sharing are all issues cited by regenerative farmers in the region. Finding ways to support farmers and advance sustainable agriculture in the state will require comprehensive and creative solutions. At Duke Farms, we're excited to figure out how we can best contribute to these efforts, and February's event represented a promising start.

North Jersey RC&D Grazing School: 2026 

Over two weekends in February, we hosted North Jersey RC&D as they launched a new initiative: The Grazing School. This program brought together twenty-four graziers from across central and northern New Jersey for a series of workshops facilitated by Craig Haney of North Jersey RC&D. The sessions were designed not only to build the technical expertise needed to implement regenerative grazing practices on participants’ own farms, but also to cultivate a regional community of graziers who can continue learning and growing together. 

As Craig aptly noted in his writeup of the event, "[t]he word 'cohort' itself traces back to Latin roots meaning 'enclosure' or 'barnyard', an apt reflection of the spirit of this group.

These graziers are 'in it' together—sharing knowledge, asking difficult questions, and navigating the realities of grazing in New Jersey side by side.

These initial sessions mark just the beginning of Grazing School, and we are excited to see what develops when the right partners and farmers come together in a shared space for learning and collaboration. By working with organizations that have long been pillars of the regenerative agriculture community in New Jersey, like North Jersey RC&D, we can begin to more clearly define what meaningful support for farmers looks like and advance regenerative grazing both regionally and on the ground here at the Farms.

Read more about what North Jersey RC&D is doing to advance regenerative agriculture in New Jersey: "Where the livestock and the grass meet, a grazing community takes root."