BLUE GRASS – Earl Martz winces at the idea that one day someone other than a Martz may work the farm his family has owned for generations.

Martz, 71, raised hogs, corn and soybeans on the same 160 acres his father bought in 1913. Two of his three sons now are working the land, but the future of the family farm is uncertain.

Soaring land values and operating costs, competition from large-scale operations and tax hurdles have made it difficult for young families to take over for the nation’s graying farmers.

“I really don’t think my grandchildren will farm,” said Martz, now a year into retirement. “We don’t know what will happen to it, really, after our two sons are done farming here.”

The questions facing the Martz family are familiar to many American farmers and ranchers.

A 2002 survey by farm economists at Iowa State University found that nearly 25 percent of Iowa farmland owners are 75 or older. Another 24 percent are 65 to 74, and nearly 22 percent are 55 to 64.

The most recent census by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows a similar trend nationwide. Based on 2002 figures, the average age of America’s estimated 2 million farmers is 55.3 years.

The next national agriculture census is scheduled for 2007, but economists say there is scant evidence to suggest the trend will reverse any time soon.

“The average age of the farmer is going up year after year after year,” said Pat O’Brien, an economist with the American Farm Bureau. “And one result of that is that we’re seeing right now more and more land being concentrated in the hands of older owners.”

Mike Duffy, professor of farm economics at Iowa State University, says research in Iowa shows an increase in land held by joint tenants and trusts – often by multiple heirs – as retirees turn the farm over to their children.

While some children choose to farm, many more have other careers. As a result, Duffy says, multiple-heir ownership has put more land in the hands of people who live away from the farm or out of state.