NJ Secretary of Agriculture Douglas Fisher Visits Food Ethics, Sustainability & Alternative class

Douglas Fisher, the New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture came to the Food Ethics, Sustainability & Alternative class in Dr. Charles Feldman’s Nutrition and Food Studies Department on Monday evening, October 17, 2022.

Secretary Fisher interactively led the class in a discussion of the problems and solutions facing the New Jersey food milieu, including the product of cattle, the dispersion of wasted food, and various laboratory initiatives aimed at increasing crop production, sustaining arable land, and limiting insect infestation.

The State Board of Agriculture’s appointment of Douglas Fisher as Secretary of Agriculture was approved by Governor Jon S. Corzine on Feb. 10, 2009. Governor Chris Christie supported Mr. Fisher’s continued service and Governor Philip Murphy accepted the State Board of Agriculture’s recommendation for Mr. Fisher to continue as Secretary in January of 2018.

Doug Fisher began a 30-year career as a supermarket owner and operator. He is a Realtor and a former New Jersey franchise owner of the Entrepreneur’s Source. A Democrat, he was elected to the New Jersey Assembly and was re-elected three times, serving as Deputy Majority Whip and Chairman of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. He also served on the Budget, Commerce and Regulated Professions committees. He was a Cumberland County Freeholder and a Bridgeton City Councilman.

In 2005, New Jersey Farm Bureau named him Legislator of the Year.

As a state legislator, Mr. Fisher was the prime sponsor of the law to ban harvesting of Horseshoe Crabs, which enhanced the survival of many endangered migratory shorebirds in the Western Hemisphere.

Mr. Fisher has been the treasurer of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA), President of Food Export-Northeast, and President of the Northeast Association of State Departments of Agriculture. In 2020, he was named the Green Industry Advocate of the Year by the New Jersey Nursery and Landscape Association; In 2014, he was awarded the Thomas W. Kelly New Jersey Food and Council Government Service Award.