• a close up of a rock in the middle of a grass covered field: Rachel Clement picks purple mustard before the first hard freeze of the season at Owl’s Nest Farm in Upper Marlboro, Md., on Nov. 9. Many women, highly educated and city-bred, are taking to the farm life. Clement has worked at the farm since August.
  • a man holding a frisbee: Liz Whitehurst picks greens at Owl’s Nest Farm in Upper Marlboro, Md., on Nov. 9. Whitehurst is the owner and operator of the farm, which sells its produce at a D.C.-area farmers market, to restaurants and through CSA shares.
  • a man that is standing in the grass: From left, Liz Whitehurst, Rachel Clement and Foster Gettys pick and weigh greens at Owl’s Nest Farm on Nov. 9.
  • a house with trees in the background: Fall colors are on display at Owl’s Nest Farm in Upper Marlboro, Md., this month.
a close up of a rock in the middle of a grass covered field: Rachel Clement picks purple mustard before the first hard freeze of the season at Owl’s Nest Farm in Upper Marlboro, Md., on Nov. 9. Many women, highly educated and city-bred, are taking to the farm life. Clement has worked at the farm since August.
 © Michael Robinson Chavez/Washington D.C.
Rachel Clement picks purple mustard before the first hard freeze of the season at Owl’s Nest Farm in Upper Marlboro, Md., on Nov. 9. Many women, highly educated and city-bred, are taking to the farm life. Clement has worked at the farm since August.

Liz Whitehurst dabbled in several careers before she ended up here, crating fistfuls of fresh-cut arugula in the early-November chill.

The hours were better at her nonprofit jobs. So were the benefits. But two years ago, the 32-year-old Whitehurst — who graduated from a liberal arts college and grew up in the Chicago suburbs — abandoned Washington for this three-acre farm in Upper Marlboro, Md.

She joined a growing movement of highly educated, ex-urban, first-time farmers who are capitalizing on booming consumer demand for local and sustainable foods and who, experts say, could have a broad impact on the food system.

For only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years old is increasing, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest Census of Agriculture. Sixty-nine percent of the surveyed young farmers had college degrees — significantly higher than the general population.

This new generation can’t hope to replace the numbers that farming is losing to age. But it is already contributing to the growth of the local-food movement and could help preserve the place of midsize farms in the rural landscape.

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