Nick Batchelder and his wife moved to Chicago at the start of the economic recession, hoping their years of experience in ecology and construction would land them jobs.
After months of scouring the Internet for openings and pumping their contacts for leads, it was only when the couple responded to a Craigslist ad for two farmhands on an organic vegetable farm that they found steady employment.
"All the other stuff we knew how to do weren't really hiring," Batchelder said. "We were like (we) might as well. ... It wasn't any spinning moment of clarity."
Now Batchelder and his wife, Becky Stark, both 32, are hoping the demand for local food will help them expand their own organic farming business.
For decades, the average age of farm operators has been rising, but experts say the growth of the local food movement is giving a new generation of farmers a foothold in the market.
Nonprofits, meanwhile, have offered a slew of new programs to not only support new farmers but also give Illinoisans more opportunities to buy locally grown food.
"There is growing consumer interest in local foods. People are willing to pay a premium on that," said Chuck Hassebrook, executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs. "Young people are learning how to develop and pursue those new markets."
In high school, Curt Elmore never thought he would take over his father's corn and soybean farm in Allerton. But after his father got sick and had to retire in 2006, Elmore felt the lure of a farmer's lifestyle was calling him home.
"That thrusted me into the position of, 'You are on your own,'" Elmore said. "I had to grow up."
Elmore, 34, was the only one of his friends from college and graduate school to pursue farming as a career, he said.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's most recent statistics, the average age of farmers in the United States is 57. In 1982, 16 percent of head farmers were younger than 35, but by 2007 that number had declined to 5 percent.
But behind the aging industry an even larger force is at work: the consolidation of U.S. farmland, experts say.
As universities and extension centers introduced new technology in the 20th century, farm operators were able grow more crops on larger amounts of land with fewer people. Farms had to grow in size to remain competitive in the commodity market.
"We've had fewer and fewer farms but we haven't decreased farmland," said Conner Bailey, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University in Alabama.
Some farmers sold their land to larger operations, which decreased the number of young people who could inherit a farm. Meanwhile, a farming industry with fewer players but larger territories became even more difficult to break into, experts say.
"We hear from people every day who want to get into farming or ranching," said Virginia Meyer, a rural policy organizer for the Center for Rural Affairs. "I don't think the industry is lacking interest from young people. I think it comes from the lack of opportunity to get into the industry."
Traditional obstacles to getting into farming, such as the price of land and the cost of equipment and materials, have only worsened over the years, experts say.
From 2011 to 2012, cropland values in Illinois grew 17.2 percent, from $5,800 an acre to $6,800, according to a USDA report.
And as farms have consolidated, fewer younger people have been trained in the trade. For those who don't inherit a farm from a family member, the barriers to conventional farming can be insurmountable, experts say.
"I think it would be very tough. The land prices and the initial startup equipment," Elmore said. "You would have to have quite the bankroll. ... There is a lot of money to shovel out."
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