SAN JOSE, Calif. - Young farmer?

Nationwide that's an oxymoron if there ever was one.

At all of 32 years of age, strawberry farmer Rob Rodriguez stands out. Most other farmers he knows are of his father's generation, not his.

From 1997 to 2002, the number of farmers in California under age 35 plummeted by 44 percent. Nationwide, only 5.8 percent of all farmers could count themselves in Rodriguez's age group in 2002.

The high price of land, the scarcity of farmland near urban centers, as well as more lucrative job opportunities in other less physically taxing industries have increasingly made farming a hard sell to a new generation.

Just consider: The average age of a principal farm operator in the United States in 2002 was 55.3, according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture. And that average has been steadily climbing since 1978.

"Farmers look at all the barriers - economic, trade, environment, irrigation, the market," said Michael Marks, a produce specialist who has been in the fruit-and-vegetable industry for more than 25 years. "When you look at all that, why in the world would a college-educated son of a third-generation farmer want to take over the family farm except to take over the land to sell it to a developer? They think, `I can grow one crop of houses and retire. Or I can continue fighting these uphill barriers and try to survive.'"

But some do. Look around closely - very closely - and you'll spot the dedicated few: 20-something and 30-something farmers plying their fruits and vegetables at farmers markets, or getting their hands dirty in their lush fields.

Some are Latino and Southeast Asian immigrant farmworkers who have risen to new independence in running their own farms. And some are U.S.-born and college-educated, drawn to this graying industry to rally the causes of organics and sustainability.

Without younger people to take over stewardship of the land, agricultural experts worry about what's ahead. Will family-owned farms become an endangered species? As more of our food is produced by massive corporate farms and imported from Chile or China, will a part of Americana be lost?

"We have to understand that farming has to be part of the future, that it's not all office parks and 3,000 housing units," said Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation. "Otherwise, where do people think their food will come from in 20 or so years?"

Increasingly, food is coming from outside our borders. The United States has been a net exporter of agricultural products since 1959, reported Amber Waves, a magazine for the Economic Research Service, the main source of economic information for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Since 1996, however, the agricultural trade surplus has shrunk from $27.3 billion (an all-time high) to $10.5 billion. Although U.S. agricultural exports continue to rise, imports are increasing nearly twice as fast.

Still, there are signs that younger people, here and there, many of them immigrants, continue to want to farm.

Sara Mora, coordinator of the Young Farmers and Ranchers committee of the California Farm Bureau, also has high hopes. Established in 1947 as a way to involve young people in the farm bureau, the committee's membership of 18- to 35-year-olds has held steady at 1,400 members for the past five years.

"When you look at the census numbers, the farm population is aging. But when you look at this program, we see younger people excited about agriculture," said Mora, who comes from a fifth-generation ranching family. "They might not be going back to agriculture today, but maybe they will be in five years or 10 years or more."