By Mary Milliken

RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif., Oct 17 (Reuters) - Tom Chino thinks hard when asked if he worries about the future of his family's famous California farm, then plucks a word from his ancestral Japanese to answer.

"Shouganai," he says, a common expression in Japan to convey resignation. "It can't be helped."

Chino, 58, does not know if a third generation of Chinos, including his 18-year-old son, will take over what some regard as the finest vegetable and fruit farm in the United States.

But he is not wasting time thinking about what he cannot control. He'd rather keep experimenting in the fields and producing the bounty that has inspired the nation's top chefs, including Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck.

Like a big kid, Chino emerges from the green tangle of vegetation carrying a long, neon-orange object that bears no resemblance to anything usually served on an American table.

"Snake gourd, common in Asia," he says as he slices open the ripe skin to reveal red berries "with the same nutritional value as a tomato" wrapped around gray prehistoric-looking seeds.

Tom's septuagenarian sister, Kazumi, wrinkles her nose before she goes back to tending the loveliest of roadside farm stands, Chino Farm's discreetly named "Vegetable Shop."

Even in these days of ubiquitous farmers' markets replete with heirloom crops and ethnic treats, the Chino stand offers a mind-boggling array of crops, organically farmed and picked fresh that morning.

On a recent warm October day, there were pineapple guava, French mara des bois strawberries, wing beans, Brazilian moranga pumpkin, five types of sweet potato, a dozen varieties of tomatoes and corn so sweet it can be eaten raw.

And that was just a small slice of what was harvested that morning from the 45-acre agricultural oasis hemmed in by luxurious homes, golf courses and equestrian centers in one of San Diego's most affluent suburbs.

'ART OF FARMING'

The Chinos are the ultimate hold-outs. The site acquired by their Japanese parents is the only working farm in these parts, the neighboring lima bean, alfalfa and sugar beet fields long gone to development.

Tom is the youngest of nine children, born and raised on the farm after the family was released from a World War II internment camp for Japanese Americans. Four of them run the farm today, working with a crew of farm hands all from the same village in Oaxaca, southern Mexico.

The parents never pressured them to carry on the family tradition and some opted for other professions like medicine.

"But it was like a natural part of living, so it seemed natural to take it over," Chino said.

Asked where they ship to, Tom says: "Muhammad comes to the mountain."

Only one restaurant, Alice Waters' Chez Panisse in Berkeley, receives shipments. All others must go to the stand. The dusty parking lot is full of Mercedes, Jaguars and BMWs.

But for all the glory, there has been plenty of hardship too.

The Chinos slogged on when Americans abandoned farm-fresh food for super-sized, factory-farmed varieties sold in supermarkets year-round.

"We always worked hard to differentiate ourselves from supermarkets, to make it worth it for people to drive out here," says Tom, happy today that "localism", as he puts it, is in vogue.

And the water has proven to be a challenge as well. They have to bring in water to supplement their own supply, which has become too salty. And with the current drought, farming water consumption will be cut 30 percent next year.

"Farming is a lot of work, not something you want to force anybody to do," says Tom.

Members of the younger generation have never done day-to-day work on the farm. And they have many hobbies like baseball and computer games to keep them from hanging out at the farm.

But Kazumi expresses hope that the young ones will come back to their roots and see the farm through the next generation.

"Behind the words, what matters is inside their hearts," she said. "I think they will."

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