The poll was conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University.s PublicMind and co-sponsored by the New Jersey Farm Bureau.
"New Jersey may be among the most densely populated states, but that doesn’t mean Garden Staters don’t value the protection of open space," New Jersey Farm Bureau President Ryck Suydam said in a news release prepared by PublicMind.
Residents in the northwest region of the state were more likely than those in the northeast — 88 percent in the northwest, 76 percent in the northeast.
According to PublicMind, 53 percent say a voter approved bond referendum should be put forth to provide several years of funding. It found 30 percent say it should be funded with long-term allocation of existing tax revenues, and 17 percent weren't sure how preservation should be funded.
The bond referendum saw greater support in the northeast (66 percent) than the northwest (49 percent) or central New Jersey (47 percent)
State-funded research programs for food production and farming methods at Rutgers University that benefit New Jersey’s farming and agriculture saw strong support — 81 percent of residents said they favored such research, and results were similar throughout the state.
"The strong support for this type of program should inform the Christie administration and legislature about the importance of such funding in the upcoming
state budget," Suydam said in the PublicMind news release.
The poll found 55 percent of residents favor an agricultural visa worker program that would allow farmers to temporarily hire workers from other countries to harvest fruits and vegetables before returning to their home countries at the end of the growing season. It found 38 percent opposed such programs.
Residents of the northwest and south were most likely to support such programs.
The poll found 57 percent believe farm animals are treated humanely; only 7 percent said farm animals were treated unfairly. Another 36 percent said they weren't sure.
About half all of polled said someone in their own households had visited a New Jersey farm in the last year for activities such as corn mazes, hay rides and fruit-picking.
The poll was conducted by telephone using both landlines and cell phones from Oct. 26 through Oct. 29 and again from Nov. 12 through Nov. 16 using a randomly selected sample of 600 New Jersey adults aged 18 and over. PublicMind said polling was suspended for about two weeks because of superstorm Sandy.