New Jersey’s new secretary of agriculture, Ed Wengryn, grew up as the grandson of Ukrainian immigrants who settled in the state as dairy and field crop farmers. He’s also long been known and recognized as a top supporter of the New Jersey equine industry.
Wengryn, who received the governor’s award for Horse Person of the Year in 2021, says his interest in horses came from working with people in the industry.
“I don’t own a horse. I don’t really ride horses,” he said, other than the occasional trail ride or riding lesson. While he loved watching Olympic equestrian events and had a fan’s interest in horses, it was getting to work with people in the industry that drew him in.
The statement that went with the Horse Person of the Year award said Wengryn is the “Farm Bureau’s representative for the Right to Farm, equine agricultural management practices development, farmland assessment, and humane standards for the care and keeping of livestock including equine animals. More recently Wengryn has lobbied for initiatives such as recognizing the importance of housing equine employees on farms and correcting sales tax issues for equine operators.”
State Support Critical
When asked about his plans as secretary to strengthen the horse industry, Wengryn said that the five-year investment by state government to fund a horse racing supplemental bill changed the industry and needs to be continued.
“Reinvestment came back in, breeding returned, more Standardbred mares and stallions returned to the state,” he said. However, in the past budget year, Gov. Phil Murphy did not fund the next five-year commitment but said he would do so through the budget process. The drop-off in the industry has been dramatic.
“We’re down about 100 mares breeding in the state this year from last year. So seeing those kinds of numbers, just from the state saying, ‘We’ll just do this annually through the budget,’ took away some confidence in the New Jersey industry,” Wengryn said.
He said that what needs to be settled on is a viable, long-term plan.
“Are we going to lay out these investments? That’s the conversations I want to be having with the industry, with the governor, and our political leadership and the Senate and the Assembly, and saying, ‘This is what this industry needs. This is how we’re going to do this, do it long-term, so that the professionals can make their strategic investments.’”
New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Ed Wengryn.
Wengryn also points out how much the Department of Agriculture counts on the Rutgers Equine Science Center (RESC).
“They’ve been the place for equestrian science and health,” he said. “The federal government was looking at how are we regulating Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing through federal standards. We’ve always counted on sound science coming from (the RESC) for the industry. We need to support that institution. That’s important.”
N.J. Sire Stakes
The ag department oversees the Standardbred Sire Stakes program, designed to help support the Standardbred industry by creating special races and breeding incentives for New Jersey-bred horses only, like the state-bred programs in place in neighboring New York and Pennsylvania.
“That’s where we’re really good,” Wengryn said. “This is one of those public/private partnerships. We have our role, they have their role, and we work together to promote that industry.
“We’re always looking for a better way for horse racing in New Jersey, in particular, the Standardbreds.”
That’s not because the department doesn’t like Thoroughbred racing, he added, but harness racing is the bigger industry in the state.
“We need to be developing programs through enhanced consumer experience with the tracks and with the owners and breeders, and the purchase of horses themselves within those programs,” Wengryn said. “That’s part of that long-term strategic plan with the administration, the legislature and the industry on how are we going to make this successful going forward.”
Those investments, he said, create a trickle-down effect in incentives for competitive hunters and jumpers, showing and other equestrian activities.
When asked about how the ag department will encourage breeders to stand stallions in New Jersey, Wengryn said it’s because the incentives work.
“We’ve seen that through this year’s experiment and then the one-year change.”
Equine Economics
There’s no question that the cost of hay, board and other factors have driven up the cost of horse keeping. Wengryn said that beyond ordinary inflation, there is agricultural inflation relating to the increased costs of fertilizer and the cost of labor in the state, all of which drive up production costs.
He is also concerned about the occupational heat stress bill moving through the Legislature. The bill will force every farmer to hire a compliance officer to do six years’ worth of record keeping, Wengryn said.
“That’s going to take people out of the industry. As much as you’re doing incentives on one side, if you’re doing counterintuitive policies on the other, it’s going to be problematic for the industry.”
