Please join the Rutgers Hemp Team on Tuesday, February 23 at 9:00 AMFebruary 18, 2021 Stephen Komar
New Jersey Annual Vegetable Meeting: Hemp Session
Please join the Rutgers Hemp Team on Tuesday, February 23 at 9:00 AMFebruary 12, 2021 Nick Polanin
Rutgers Online Pesticide Applicator Exam Portal is Open
To streamline NJ’s pesticide exam process, Rutgers Office of Continuing Professional Education has announced that the new online Pesticide Applicator Certification Exam Registration (PACER) system is available for your use immediately.
How the new system benefits YOU:
- Online Access: Web-based PACER application is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- No More Snail Mail: Upload your support documents online and eliminate the time and expense required to mail them.
- Quick Review Turnaround: Your application will be reviewed within 48 business hours and you will be notified of any problems or concerns with your documentation promptly via email.
- Immediate Exam Scheduling: Online exams are available 24/7. Once in-person exams resume, YOU choose your exam date and location when you register; no more waiting to hear which of your exam date and time choices were available.
- Fast Exam Results: See your exam grades within 7 business days of exam completion.
- More Exam Times and Locations: Due to COVID-19, all exams are currently being offered online. When restrictions are lifted, online exams will continue and in-person exams will resume. New facilities will be added around the state to give you more options for added convenience. In-person exams will be administered weekdays, evenings and on Saturdays to better accommodate your schedule.
- Manage Others’ Exams: Are you responsible for your organization’s employees? Now you can easily track and manage exam applications and scheduling for multiple people in PACER! Set up an account in PACER then provide us with the information listed below so we can upgrade your account to Business Manager. Send information to: pacer@njaes.rutgers.edu. (A commercial pesticide applicator business license number is required to establish a Business Manager account; a business license number begins with “9”).
- Business Manager Name; Business Manager Email Address
- Company Name; Company Address; Company Business License #
- Support: Responsive, courteous help desk support is available Monday through Friday, 8:00am-4:30pm. Phone: 848‐932‐9271, Option 7; Fax: 732‐932‐1187; E‐mail: pacer@njaes.rutgers.edu
Examination Fees are $115 per each Category exam and the Core exam; $50 for the Private licensing exam:
- Pay online via credit card or e-check, with no extra surcharge
- Purchase Orders will also be accepted via upload
- Exam payments are not refundable and online exams have minimum computer requirements detailed on the website
Please note that all exams are CLOSED book and the NJDEP no longer offers any pesticide certification exams.
The PACER website also has step-by-step instructions to create an account before registering for the exam, and user and hardware requirements to successfully complete the exam (Google Chrome internet browser, webcam, wired / Ethernet connection, ample bandwidth for Proctorio download and use, etc.). Also, make sure you choose a quiet and comfortable location to take your exams, as earphones or headphones are not permitted during the exam.
Please Visit the NJDEP website for information regarding pesticide licensing, policies, procedures, credits, and for payment and status of your license. For frequently asked questions regarding pesticide licensing please click here.
Visit PACER today!
February 8, 2021 Nick Polanin
USDA to Measure Financial Well-Being of Farmers and Ranchers
Initiated back in late December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will be spending these next several months gathering information about farm economics and production practices from farmers and ranchers across the United States, as the agency conducts the third and final phase of the 2020 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS).
“ARMS is the only survey that measures the current financial well-being of producers and their households as a whole,” said King Whetstone, director of the NASS Northeastern Region. “The results of this survey will help inform decisions on local and federal policies and programs that affect farms and farm families.”
In an effort to obtain the most accurate data, NASS will reach out to more than 30,000 producers nationwide, between January and April in 2021. The survey asks producers to provide in-depth information about their operating revenues, production costs, and household characteristics.
The 2020 ARMS survey includes a version of the questionnaire focused on hog and pig production costs and returns. This year the survey also includes questions to help measure any impacts of COVID-19 on farms, farm and household finances, and off-farm employment. “In February, our interviewers will begin reaching out to those farmers who have not yet responded,” said Whetstone. “We appreciate their time and are here to help them with the questionnaire so that their information will continue supporting sound agricultural decision making.”
In addition to producing accurate information, NASS has strong safeguards in place to protect the confidentiality of all farmers who respond to its surveys. The agency will only publish data in an aggregate form, ensuring the confidentiality of all responses and that no individual respondent or operation can be identified.
Growers can complete the survey online, saving you time by allowing you to skip over questions that do not apply to you, by calculating totals automatically, and by providing drop-down menus for common answers. It also saves taxpayer dollars that would otherwise be spent on return postage and data entry.
To complete your survey online, you will need your unique Survey Code from the address label on the paper questionnaire or letter you received in the mail. You can save a partially completed survey by clicking “Save and Return Later.” Do not click the “Submit” button until you are sure you are finished with your survey.
The expense data gathered in ARMS will be published in the annual Farm Production Expenditures report in July 2021. That report and others are available by clicking here. More reports based on ARMS data and more information about ARMS are available online here. For more information, please call the NASS Northeastern Regional Field Office at (800) 498-1518.
NASS is the federal statistical agency responsible for producing official data about U.S. agriculture and is committed to providing timely, accurate and useful statistics in service to U.S. agriculture.
February 3, 2021 Rick VanVranken
2021 NJ Ag/VGANJ Virtual Convention Update 2
My apologies for some of the confusion from my initial update regarding the educational sessions of our 2021 NJ Ag/VGANJ Convention will be held virtually the last week of February. While the entire up-to-date program was, and is, available to view on the Vegetable Growers Association of NJ website – VGANJ.com/schedule, I forgot one critical point in that last post. The link for signing up for pesticide re-certification credits was not ready to go at that time.
It is ready now.
(One other clarification – when you join the VGANJ and pay your membership dues at either the full or daily rate, you are also registered for these educational sessions.)
Registration for Pesticide License Re-certification Credits
If you want to receive pesticide re-certification credits for attending any of the sessions offering them, you must supply identification information that will allow us to confirm your participation and to let DEP know which sessions you attend. You do not have to sign up for individual sessions, but you must supply these required pre-registration details or you will not receive credit. If supplied, you will receive credits for any session you attend in its entirety as described in our guide.
If you are attending for credits, you will need to be signed in to the Zoom meeting within 10 minutes of the start, remain attentive and responsive to random polls, and logged into the session until it ends. You will not get credit if you leave to join another Zoom session. There will be some allowance and support if there are technical issues, but otherwise, leaving a meeting early will disqualify you for credits.
Before you start to register for credits, please have the following ready before you start:
- A photo, scan or screen-shot (your ID and license may be submitted as one photo or two) of:
- your Government-issued ID, and
- NJ Pesticide applicator status
- copy of your current license, OR
- status page from the NJ DEP <https://go.rutgers.edu/t0hiphuz>- search for your name in either the “Commercial Certified Pesticide Applicators by Name” or “Private Certified Pesticide Applicators by Name” menu selections on the page.)
NOTE: If you are NOT looking for credits, DO NOT enter your license and ID information. You will be able to move from Zoom session to Zoom session.
January 29, 2021 Rick VanVranken
2021 NJ Ag/VGANJ Virtual Convention Update
By now you’ve probably heard from many venues that the educational sessions of our 2021 NJ Ag/VGANJ Convention will be held virtually the last week of February. Members of the Rutgers NJAES Vegetable Working Group and our colleagues that cover other commodities have developed a comprehensive program covering a wide range of topics. The entire up-to-date program can now viewed on the Vegetable Growers Association of NJ website – VGANJ.com/schedule.
As you will see on the program, concurrent two and a half hours-long, commodity-oriented sessions and workshops are scheduled each morning and afternoon. There will be sessions offering pesticide recertification credits. To accommodate the limitations of the Zoom platform, category credits will be available in afternoon sessions only, while two lunchtime sessions (Tues and Thurs) offer CORE credits.
Morning sessions may carry over into lunchtime Q&A discussions with speakers, if demand warrants, but on Wed, Feb 24, please join VGANJ President John Banscher for a special Tribute to New Jersey Farmers. We thank you for all your essential work during the pandemic of 2020, and we thank the VGANJ for sponsoring this educational event.
As we have offered at previous conventions, we are partnering with the NJ Dept of Health to offer their required training to those farmers/market managers who participate in the WIC & Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program. However, so as not to interfere with afternoon sessions, this has been scheduled as a separate Zoom meeting from 4-6pm. More details will follow.
To obtain credits via a virtual meeting requires a couple of extra steps on your part. Please view and familiarize yourself with the steps to be followed in this guide, which will also be available if you sign up for credits after registering with VGA. If you are not looking for credits, you will be able to move from session to session, but those wanting credits will need to be signed in to the Zoom meeting within 10 minutes of the start, remain attentive and responsive to random polls, and logged into the session until it ends. There will be some allowance and support if there are technical issues, but otherwise, leaving a meeting early will disqualify you for credits.
January 28, 2021 Kate Brown
Nominate Your Fire Department to Win a Grain Bin Rescue Tube
Photo courtesy of Nationwide.
In support of “Grain Bin Safety Week” (February 21-27, 2021), Nationwide Insurance has partnered with the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS), KC Supply, and others to sponsor the “Nominate Your Fire Department Contest”. Winning departments will receive one grain rescue tube and a 6-hour grain entrapment rescue training session at the winner’s location – a combined value of over $8,000.
Entries must be submitted by 11:59 PM (CT) on Friday, April 30, 2021. For more information on entry submission and contest rules, visit https://go.rutgers.edu/voezegwn.
