MONTEREY, La. &8212; It&8217;s a familiar refrain across rural America &8212; is American agriculture dying?

&8220;It&8217;s getting to be there are fewer and fewer farmers,&8221; Monterey farmer Lynn White said. &8220;There aren&8217;t many young people looking to go into this.&8221;

The average age of American farmers is just over 55, according to numbers from the U.S. Census of Agriculture, more than a year older than the average in 1997.

If that trend continues, the American farming community will be getting old soon.

Concordia Parish County Agent Glen Daniels said he fears agriculture of all kinds will have a hard time finding qualified workers in the near future.

&8220;I just don&8217;t see the same numbers (of young people) going in anymore,&8221; Daniels said. &8220;There&8217;s going to be a deficit soon in terms of having enough farmers to go around.&8221;

Farming has become a lot more complicated than when White started 20 years ago, he said.

&8220;It is a business now. It&8217;s not what it used to be,&8221; White said. &8220;Things change so much now, and if you don&8217;t change, you&8217;ll be left behind.&8221;

Daniels said the prospect of trying to make a living through farming is so difficult it&8217;s discouraging to young people.

&8220;The agriculture economy has been dismal, and so far I don&8217;t see any reason to think that will really change,&8221; Daniels said.

White said he sees more and more young people leaving the area and going into careers away from agriculture.

&8220;It&8217;s a sad subject in a way,&8221; White said. &8220;I hate to see young people leave here, but what&8217;s the other option?&8221;

The high cost of machinery &8212; like cotton-pickers can run several hundred thousand dollars &8212; and other technology, like pesticide resistant crops, means the profit margin on raising crops is getting smaller, Daniels said.

More large farms may be one result. Some production costs can be reduced at larger farms, White said.

&8220;I&8217;m afraid farms will just continue to get fewer and larger,&8221; White said. &8220;Twenty years ago there were more family farms than there are today and I think there will be fewer in the future.&8221;

Landon White, Lynn&8217;s son, is one of the few who does want to follow in his father&8217;s footsteps. He wants to take over the family farm and raise cattle, but only after he gets a degree in agriculture business.

&8220;I&8217;ll go to college, then I can come back and have everything set up,&8221; White said.

But White&8217;s the exception, not the rule. He said most of his friends aren&8217;t interested in farming at all.

For some, college may eventually lead to a career outside agriculture, but for many it&8217;s a huge step forward in their careers, said Joe Bairnsfather, who works with 4-H programs through the LSU AgCenter in Concordia Parish.

&8220;Things are different,&8221; 4-H&8217;s Bairnsfather said. &8220;The ones farming now, some of the younger guys, they are encouraged to get a (another) degree to fall back on if agriculture doesn&8217;t work out.&8221;

But if the kids do leave for other businesses, the farmland may not be used for crops any longer.

As farmers retire or die and stop using their farmland, two things happen, local experts said.

&8220;If farmers have kids who decided to do something else, what are they going to do with the land?&8221; Bairnsfather said.

There are fewer family farms being passed down from parents to children, but much of the land that was once split into small family-owned farms is still being used &8212; just by a different owner. Larger corporate farms, which consolidate smaller farms into one, are taking over much of the farmland, Monterey Ag teacher Tammy Faulkner said.

&8220;People think agriculture is dying. Family farms are going out, but we&8217;re not losing total farmland,&8221; Faulkner said. &8220;You can see that here with Angelina Farms. What used to be a lot of family farms is a big corporate farm.&8221;

The other option is letting the land go back to nature. Several government conservation programs provide incentives to let land go without use. Landowners can get money for their land from these programs or use the land for hunting leases.

In Concordia Parish, many of the farmers &8212; as much at 90 percent &8212; are tenant farmers, who lease land from other people to grow their crops, Daniels said.

That means landowners, many of whom do not live in the area, have little incentive not to put their land into conservation programs.

&8220;A lot of farmland is going into conservation programs,&8221; Daniels said. &8220;At first it was just land that wasn&8217;t suitable farmland, like forest or swamps. But now we&8217;re seeing good, farmable land going into conservation programs.&8221;