Julie Jorgenson (left) and Patty Cantrell discuss lessons learned at the Wells farm.

It was really all about beginnings last Saturday when we toured the Wells Family Farm near Williamsburg. Mike and Phyllis Wells may be gradually working their way out of the big small-farm business they’ve built over the last 20 years, marketing fresh, naturally raised veggies to hundreds of people in the area. But the new farmers who gathered around them for the tour, listening intently for tips of the trade, are eager to get rolling with some of the knowledge that Mike and Phyllis, preparing for retirement, are happy to share.

“People who look at other farmers as competition really have it wrong,” Phyllis said. “We need more of them! There may be plenty of cherry and apple farmers around here, but there’s not too many of anything else.”

And that’s how my partner Jeff, his daughter Amy, and I came to be on the tour, sponsored by the Get Farming! initiative that I help lead at the Michigan Land Use Institute in Traverse City. Get Farming! is all about linking a new generation of farmers with the farmland, business, and mentorship opportunities they need to succeed in the new, dynamic, and growing market for local and authentic foods. It’s also about strengthening the Grand Traverse region, and Michigan in general, as a great place to live and work.

Everyone who came on the tour is at the beginning of a new farming journey in some way. They range from Dan Bair, 27, now an intern at Ware Farm’s subscription veggie service, or Community Supported Agriculture farm, in Manistee County, to Julie Jorgenson, who is exploring new markets for her family’s recently transitioned organic fruit orchards in the Northport area.

Together, this group and many more like them, represent a new beginning for Michigan, too. The state needs to be attractive as a place to live if it is to be attractive to employers in the future. Growth in the U.S. labor force is slowing down now that the Baby Boom balloon of workers is retiring. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the annual labor market growth rate from 2000 to 2050 at nearly one-third what it was from 1950 to 2000 (.6 percent per year vs. 1.6 percent per year).

That means employers will in the future follow potential employees around the country, not the other way around, as it was over the last two generations. Check out this June 4 Michigan Live article, Not just any job will keep college grads in Michigan, for more: http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2008/06/not_just_any_job_will_keep_sta.html.

John Fregonese, a national leader in helping communities plan for a “livability” future, has made this demographic point clear in recent Grand Vision workshops across the region. And in those workshops, residents of Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau, and Wexford counties consistently put employment opportunities for youth, healthy local food, and farmland and water protection into their visions for a prosperous region.

Get Farming! participants like Dan Bair exemplify how this region can accomplish a healthy economic, environmental, and social future. After getting a taste of the office life, he’s decided to put his University of Michigan degree and recent organic farming certification from Michigan State University to work in the new agriculture.

After living in different parts of the country, he’s also decided to come home to pursue his goal of operating his own Community Supported Agriculture farm. “Eventually I’d like to have my own farm. And I’d like to make that happen in Michigan.”