Intention of this section. It is the intention of this section for the ordinances of the Township of Manalapan to model and comply with the New Jersey Right to Farm Act, N.J.S.A. 4:1C-1 et seq., as the same may be amended and supplemented from time to time. The interpretation and application of the Code of the Township of Manalapan pertaining to farms and the Township’s resolution of conflicts with the complaints against farms shall be in accordance with the most current amendments or revisions to the Right to Farm Act and the approved management practices adopted by the New Jersey State Agriculture Development Committee and the Monmouth County Agriculture Development Board.

Recognition of right to exist. The right to farm all land is hereby recognized to exist as a natural right and is hereby ordained to exist as a permitted use everywhere in the Township of Manalapan, subject only to size requirements and the applicable provisions of the Township zoning and development regulations and to the Township's health and sanitary codes. The Township recognizes that the primary jurisdiction to identify and regulate generally accepted agricultural management operations and practices on commercial farms rests with the State Agriculture Development Committee and the Monmouth County Agriculture Development Board and that the Board shall consider, among other things, the impact of such practices on the Township and, in so doing, consider the limitations imposed by Township zoning ordinances adopted pursuant to the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law. The right to farm as used herein this section includes the use of irrigation pumps, equipment, aerial and ground seeding, tractors, farm laborers, and the application of appropriate agricultural and animal husbandry techniques as well as all other recognized equipment and modern procedures all for the purpose of producing from the land agricultural products such as vegetables, grain, hay, fruits, fibers, wood, trees, plants, shrubs, flowers, and seeds as well as propagation and maintenance of horses, cows, and other grazing stock.

Definitions. For the purposes of interpretation of this chapter, the following definitions shall apply:

Activities protected. In accordance with the purposes and preambles set forth herein, the following farming activities shall be deemed established as acceptable, recognized, and entitled to encouragement and protection as the collective embodiment of the right to farm, subject in all cases, however, to any supervening applicable federal, state and county laws or regulating the public health, safety or otherwise:

Notice of farm use.[2] For the purpose of giving due notice of nearby farming uses to proposed new residential areas adjacent to unimproved land then being commercially farmed or suitable therefor, the Planning Board shall require an applicant for an adjacent major or minor subdivision, as a condition of approval of such application, to include a provision in each and every contract, for and deed conveying all or any portion of the lands thereby subdivided, as well as filed final subdivision maps, the following record notice to and waiver by grantees of such present or future proximate farming uses, which such provision shall be made to run with the land: