From rising costs to labor shortages, farmers are facing immense pressure to continue serving their communities.
"You know, we've become a society that is so much less connected to food production," Kurt Alstede, Founder of Alstede Farms, said.
Consider 100 years ago, 1 out of every 3 Americans was still connected to a farm. If they were not on one, their parents or grandparents were farmers.
The Tri-State region is bursting with small and family farms offering freshly grown produce and so much more.
"It's very important to invest in our family farms," Ann Sullivan, a Melick Farm Stores customer, said.
Alstede Farms in Chester and Melick Farms in Oldwich are farming for 21 million people across the region.
"We are so proud to serve our community. We have lots of wonderful customers that we're happy to bring all our fresh produce to every year," Rebecca Melick of Melick Farms said.
It may seem like the simple life, but running these smaller operations is a huge commitment that comes with steep costs and challenges to family farmers, especially in the current economy.
"For us, interest rates are important. We have loans for our land and operating expenses. We literally borrow millions of dollars each spring to put our crops in the ground," Alstede said.
These farms depend on being able to keep their products affordable and worth it to customers to keep coming.
One of the largest and most challenging expenses and hardest demands to meet for many small farms is labor.
"We have 35 full-time year-round employees. We all depend on having enough staff and if we don't get the staff, how do we run our business? Alstede said.
Alstede depends on foreign farm workers who come to the US on guest worker visas overseen by the federal government. But they say not enough guest workers are being allowed to come over.
"That's capped at about 130k for the entire country. We're thrown into a lottery and none of us right now we have no certainty as to getting the workers that we need," Alstede said.
Ben Casella with the New Jersey Farm Bureau says the guest workers program somehow seems to get tossed in with the hot-button issue of immigration. He said it's been difficult to unbind them so that farmers can get the workers they need without worry.
"People want to work here. They want to be legal and they want to go home. I mean it really is that simple," Casella said.