Think back to autumn. The days have turned cool and crisp, marking traditional pumpkin-picking time in Bergen. Now imagine that, when this coming October rolls around, you find that your favorite Bergen farm, which for years offered the perfect pumpkin patch and apple-picking orchard, is suddenly gone.

In 1997, there were 131 farms on 2,955 acres in Bergen. In 2002, there were 91 farms in the county, with a total acreage of 1,283. Over the past seven years, the number of farms has declined by 31 percent and the total farm acreage by 57 percent.

Richard Tice, a descendant of two colonial-era Bergen farming families, the Tices and the Van Ripers, sold the last acres of his family's farm to a commercial developer five years ago. The Gap, Banana Republic and Pottery Barn replaced the Tice fields and farm market and its picturesque water wheel.

But, for the families clinging to the tradition of farming in Bergen, it's a way of life and a love of the land handed down from generation to generation that has inspired a new era in farming, which could very well sow the seeds of the future. Here, (201) profiles four families in Bergen who take pride in offering fresh produce, refusing to sell out to developers and keeping Bergen farms on the map.

Joy Farm: Bridging the community and agriculture

It was family ties that drew Susan Joy, 41, back to her roots at Joy Farm, Paramus. Susan thought she had left the farm behind for good at age 31, when she went to work in the Atlantic City casinos. Her grandfather, Joseph, founded and farmed the 17-acre parcel, today squeezed between the Garden State Parkway and looming housing developments. After Joseph's death in 1996, Joy's father, Joe, now 71, and her uncle, Robert, inherited the land they grew up on, but they had alternate commitments. Joy began to work on the farm to help out.

"My father is planted here like a tomato," Susan says. "I started looking for a way to keep the farm in the family." Despite her father's deep-rooted attachment to his land, the pressures on the Joys to sell and quit farming are great.

Bergen's average population density is 47 times greater than the national average, and its per capita income is almost twice the national average. Based on the frequent solicitations the Joys receive from developers, Susan estimated that the farm could easily be sold for $10 to 15 million. But Susan wasn't ready to sell.

Susan searched online for ideas about how to keep the farm, and she discovered the idea of community-supported agriculture, a movement that began on two East Coast farms in 1986. By 1999, more than 1,000 farms nationwide had converted to this farming strategy, which directly connects growers and consumers. Farms that participate in community-supported agriculture sell shares into their crops in early spring. The farmer then uses the money to buy seeds and fertilizer to start planting. Shareowners pick up their fractional portion of produce at the farm, usually once a week, during the growing season.

Susan thought that she might have found a way to keep the farm going. But, first, she had to persuade her father that community-supported agriculture was a good idea. When Susan told her father about the crop-share system one morning over coffee, Joe was shocked. "You can't take people's money up ahead and give them nothing," he told her. She reminded him that the farm had never had a crop that failed, and the decision was made to try this approach.

Joe Farm is now in its third year of community-supported agriculture. This year, the Joys sold 30 shares at $599 each and used the $17,970 to buy seeds, plants and fertilizer, and to maintain the two vintage tractors that Susan and her father drive.

The farm's future still preys on her mind. She cannot predict what her father and uncle will decide for the farm ultimately. Whatever the outcome, Susan is happy with the time she spends tending the fields. "It is not even close to what I was making in the casinos. Yet the feeling I have at the end of the day is, as MasterCard would say, 'priceless.'"

Demarest Farm: A generation of tradition

Peter Demarest, with the help of his wife, Marsha, is the fourth Demarest generation to work the 35-acre Demarest Farm. The Hillsdale farm, founded in 1886, will be passed to P.J., his 28-year-old son. Peter contends farming is either in your blood or not. For the 58-year-old, farming brings great satisfaction, especially when a fantastic crop is yielded. "You do get a high off of that," he says. In 2003 Peter won the 2003 Outstanding Fruit Grower Award in New Jersey.

Demarest Farm, known for its 30 different varieties of peaches, also grows nectarines, corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, squash and flowers. It has about 4,000 dwarf apple trees.

Demarest describes his business as "agritourism," not simply farming. In the fall, Demarest Farm offers many autumn activities, including apple and pumpkin picking, a haunted house for Halloween, pony rides and hayrides. Visitors can snack on doughnuts, Tasti D-Lite ice cream, cider and items from the salad bar while sitting picnic tables next to a small waterfall. The red barn farm market sells fresh produce, baked good, cookbooks, flowers and garden plants. "Without pick-your-own, we could not survive," Peter says, about the popularity of pick-your-own produce.

Peter's adaptability to customers' wants and needs has kept Demarest Farm, which employs 35 people, viable. However, farms in Bergen continue to be sold for development, despite state and county efforts to preserve open space. Peter has been active in the efforts to save farms and enact right-to-farm laws.

Peter decided to negotiate with the state and county to sell the future development rights of the 11-acre Hillsdale portion of Demarest Farm. Under the sales agreement, which recently received final freeholder approval, the state and county will split the $3.65 purchase price for the 11-acre parcel. The $322,000 per acre price is the highest yet paid in the state to preserve farmland and open space. Its future owner can sell it, but the land must always remain farmland or open space.

Peter says the market value of the land is closer to $5.2 million, but he and his 78-year-old mother, who still owns the farm, made the decision to accept the lower price. They wanted the land to stay undeveloped, and they wanted to give P.J. money for flexibility when he takes over the farm.

Peter believes that, 20 years from now, his son will still be farming the land, under then broader concept of agritourism: giving the consumer a farm and country experience. "You're in the entertainment business, the feel-good business," he says about farming.

Old Hook Farm: The organic way

Bruce and Mary Marek of Old Hook Farm, Emerson, rise early, like most farmers. At 5 a.m. on summer mornings, the Mareks still take the time before starting their workday to sit side-by-side in their Adirondack chairs and watch bats swoop and dip over their fields. The couple grows mustard and turnip greens, lettuce, tomatoes, eggplant, squash, cucumbers, corn, peppers and flowers on their 6.4-acre farm. They sell most of their organic produce directly to their customers from their farm stand.

Bruce, 51, grew up on the farm, which his grandfather purchased from Hackensack Water Company to use as a summer camp. After Bruce's father was discharged from the Navy, his father decided to make his livelihood farming the old camp. Bruce had planned to be an auto mechanic, but his father's sudden death in 1972, when Bruce was only 20, thrust him into the role of farmer. The family spent the next six years attempting to sell the land or develop it themselves. Bruce built a model of the development envisioned for the farm and placed a toy figure of a man and his German shepherd on the corner lot where he and his wife would life. However, Bruce didn't like what he saw. Bruce bought out his family, called off the development plans and decided to keep farming.

Bruce and Mary did all the planting in their early years and still do much of it, with the help of only one farm hand. Bruce chose not to use artificial pesticides and fertilizers because he associated his father's sudden fatal heart attack with his long-term exposure to toxic agricultural chemicals. Eventually, the farm received its organic certification from the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey, which follows USDA regulations.

Old Hook Farm seems to hearken back to earlier, simpler times in keeping with its organic theme. Bruce and Mary raised their family in the house adjacent to the farm stand. In the spring and summer organically grown blooming plants that Bruce carefully tends surround the stand, directly in front of the farm's fields. In the fall, summer perennials are switched with pumpkins, cornstalks and chrysanthemums.

The family takes shifts tending the stand. It is Mary, as well as her 80-year-old mother, and Mariel, Bruce and Mary's 21-year-old daughter, who cover the stand. An assistant also rotates shifts. Mariel has stayed on the farm, unlike her sister but has not yet decided if farming will be her life.

Bruce has considered, and for the time being, has decided against selling the farm's future development rights. It's hard for Bruce to imagine living anywhere but on his farm, he says. He is at ease living on his land with its future not clearly defined, but worry still creeps in. when it does he finds peace by reminding himself, "The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord."

Stokes Farm: Responding to the consumer

You have to be a pretty good grower, but a really good marketer," says Ron Binaghi Jr., 44, about farming today. Binaghi Jr. and his wife, Jeanine, make the fifth generation to run the 17-acre Stokes Farm, Old Tappan.

Isaia Stokes bought the farmland in 1873 and raised chickens, cows, pigs and vegetables. By the 1960s, Ron Binaghi Sr. ran the farm with his wife. They grew vegetables and strawberries, nurtured in green houses on the farm. They sold their produce out of a successful, yet simple four-post stand roadside, with sales averaging about 2,000 quarts of strawberries a week in June. They also sold their produce at the wholesale Paterson farmers' market.

However, rising gas prices in the 1970s increased the cost of operating the greenhouses, and sales at the farm stand fell. Ron Sr. decided to try selling his produce in the fledgling New York City Greenmarkets. Stokes Farm became one of the first dozen farms to sell directly to customers and chefs in the city. This strategy proved successful for Stokes Farm, which now employs seven full-time workers.

"Without Greenmarket, we wouldn't be farmers," Ron Jr. says. His parents still own half of the farm, but are no longer active in its day-to-day operations.

Greenmarket sales account for 90 percent of the farm's revenues, and its customers dictate what the farm grows. Ten acres of the farm are devoted to herbs: rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, lemongrass, lemon verbena and more. Ron Jr. won the 2000 New Jersey Young Farmer of the Year Award from the New Jersey Junior Chamber of Commerce.

Ron Jr.'s son, Ron Binaghi III, 20, has decided to become the sixth generation to run Stokes Farm. He takes the farm's herbs and produce to the Tucker Greenmarket near Lincoln Center on Thursdays and Saturdays. The Stokes Farm truck, frequented by renowned chefs such as Danny Meyers of Union Square Restaurant and Mario Batali of Babbo, is a regular at the Union Square Greenmarket.

The Stokes Farm is taxed at the farmland assessment rate of about $3,000 an acre in Old Tappan. "No farmer in Bergen could keep farming if his farm was taxed at a commercial or residential rate," Ron Jr. says.

The Binaghis have discussed selling the future development rights to the farm and are keeping the option open. For now, the family business will continue. Ron Jr. recalled when he first took over the farm and came across a small puddle in a rut. He remembered riding his tricycle through a puddle in the same spot when he was a small boy. "I want my son to ride his bike through that same puddle," he says.