Raising cranberries and feed for cattle may sound like wildly different things, but farmers whose livelihood depends on them agree that New Jersey’s current drought is the worst they’ve ever seen.

While none of New Jersey has been spared from the drought, Burlington County has faced some of the worst drought conditions.

“It just hurts our bank account that we have to go buy feed elsewhere, when we’ve already put in the expenses of the fertilizer and the seed to plant crops,” said Danielle Wainwright, farmer and co-owner with her husband Fred of Clover Valley Farm. On their 260-acre property, they grow cattle forage for their 200 head of cattle.

Twenty-two miles away, the reservoir at the farm of Stephen Lee IV is 7 feet below its normal line. A sixth-generation cranberry grower, Lee says some of his fellow growers won’t meet their harvest quota after the driest two-month stretch in recorded state history. Lee’s farm, though, will meet its goal.

“We have a well that we’ve put in actually in 1997 for this type of situation, although we never anticipated on having to need it to this level,” he said. “We’ve probably spent more money on diesel fuel in the last three weeks than we have in the entire year thus far.”

Like other cranberry growers, Lee is hoping the drought ends soon and alleviates his fear of wildfires that could threaten his crop.

“When you have a fire that would start out, perhaps at Apple Pie Hill or the other side of Chatsworth, it may not stop until it gets to the Garden State Parkway, because it’s so dry,” he said. “And the area that we’re in, the Pinelands National Reserve, is so dry that it could have a detrimental effect on the environment, and specifically on the region.”