By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot

Luke Hartung’s ancestors were some of the first settlers to arrive in Perth County in the 1830s and it’s not hard to imagine how proud they would be that the better life they imagined for their children and children’s children is exemplified in Luke himself.
It was Luke’s uncle, John Mueller (who farms near Rostock) who reached out and said Luke and family are seventh generation farmers of the Hartung clan and would I do a story on him as a way to advocate for young farmers. Being the seventh generation to farm is a big deal and I wondered what that history means to Luke and how deep do those farming roots go?
Luke himself wasn’t too sure he should be the focus of a story but the more we got into it, the more pride in agriculture, entrepreneurial spirit and family respect was revealed as Luke’s story unwound from the days of his grandfather, Henry Hartung, who ran a mixed farm.
“I don’t have the whole genealogy like John Mueller does but I can tell you the plaque on the bank barn is dated 1878,” says Luke, sitting at the dining room table in the house both his father and grandfather lived in on Line 89 near Gowanstown. His grandfather had grown up in Wallaceville, not far from this farm. He married a local girl – Ruth Klein – and they had laying hens and dairy cows. This was pre-quota days and the couple separated the cream from the milk and brought it to a creamery a block away. They had three kids of which the youngest was a son named Donald Hartung who would take over the farm at the young age of 17 when his father died at 53 of bowel cancer. 
“He and my grandmother had to decide what to do. My dad was able to finish high school and then he started farming full-time,” says Luke. Dairy was the focus of the farm and cows were milked in the old bank barn until 2009. Then came another big decision for the farm, which was experiencing financial stress. Should they build a new barn and expand? Or should they turn into a crop farm and get off-farm jobs to supplement their incomes?
It was a make or break moment, in a sense. From years of working on the farm, Luke knew he was a farmer but not a dairy farmer. “I told my dad I liked milking cows but only three times a week.” The decision was made to alter the trajectory on the farm from cows to crops and Luke says they had no regrets. The pair began the process of transitioning the farm from Donald to Luke when his two siblings decided not to farm.
Then Luke had to decide what his off-farm career would be. Teaching was a thought until he volunteered in a high school during his days at the University of Guelph. The experience nixed that idea! “I just didn’t realize I could have a career in agriculture other than being a farmer. I was oblivious to it,” Luke remembers. “I figured all farm kids go back to the farm.”
So he went to Ridgetown College to get a diploma in agriculture and during that time, sowed his first entrepreneurship seeds by starting up a market gardening operation with his long-time friend Andy Williams. They named it Har-Will.  In 2011, Luke and his wife Crystal took over the market gardening business, renaming it Harwill Farms, differentiated from the cash crop side of the farm which is known as Hartung Farms. “The market gardening side of the farm has grown and evolved. We now grow a wide range of vegetables and sell our produce at the Minto Farmers’ Market in Palmerton, through a seasonal Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) business and via a weekly e-mail list where customers pick up their veggie order at the farm,” says Luke. Harwill’s biggest market garden crop is pumpkins. Last year, they grew seven acres of them which they market through roadside stands, wholesale through local stores and sell at their on-farm event called Pumpkinpalooza. This year’s event is scheduled for October 5 and 6.
Before all that happened, Donald and Luke were still figuring out their own direction. 
Donald ended up working full-time as a milk truck driver for Allan Johnson Milk Transport, a job he very much enjoyed. He was often done driving by early afternoon and could start working on the farm. Managing the farm wasn’t Donald’s best skillset so he handed the decision-making responsibility of the farm to Luke early on. Luke felt confident in this role but was still searching for his ideal off-farm job. He was hired by Agricorp to work in the call centre. “I liked it but it made me realize that I wanted to work outside.” Next, he got a job at Midwest Cooperative which was Huron Bay Cooperative at the time. He started working there full-time in 2011 and still works full-time as the Agronomy Sales and Marketing Manager. 
Both men enjoyed their jobs and worked really well together on the farm. “We complemented each other so well and our partnership was great,” remembers Luke. However, the family faced a very difficult time when Donald was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2021. He died the following year, in his early 60s. Luke continued the farming legacy with his mother, who lives just down the road, working on a transition plan that “provided a path forward for me to take over the farm.” The process of transitioning is ongoing but Luke owns and manages the farms with a plan in place for his siblings’ farm inheritance. Luke says it’s vital to have an open process to maintain a healthy family dynamic. He admits that talking farm specifics is sometimes “touchy” but the siblings visit, get along and support each other.
Looking back to 2021, Luke said it was a “very difficult year” for the Hartung family and the farm. Besides Donald’s illness, the farm shed burned down and Luke got his hand caught in an auger. Two surgeries and a pile of physiotherapy later, Luke has full use of his hand with the scars to remind him how being in a hurry can have awful consequences. The shed fire cost them a building and three tractors. One tractor was parked 30 feet away from the shed but the heat from the fire destroyed it. Insurance helped but a farm fire is also costly. The farm now has two sheds – one for the crop side of the business and the other, a new shed built in 2023,  for the market gardening business. Luke is looking forward to the final details, still being finished, which includes an office, featuring  aromatic hickory lumber Luke and his father harvested together. 
Both Hartung men started farming young with a lot of responsibility but Luke believes this is the way to go. “A healthy farm is one where responsibility is given to sons at a young age,” he says. “It allows them to call the shots, make mistakes and learn from their mistakes.” He feels very strongly about this, saying in his work as an agronomist, he sees farms struggle when the fathers won’t let the next generation take responsibility. “Farmers that struggle with moving decision-making to the next generation are farms that are dead in the water.”
It’s advice he takes seriously because Luke now has two children with his wife Crystal – eight-year-old Blake and five-year-old Brooke. Obviously, they are too young to know what their future holds but they are already helping in the market garden portion of the farm. Luke gives his wife all the credit for her support and work on the farm as she balances farm life, motherhood and her career as an x-ray technician at the Listowel Hospital. 
Reflecting on his farming history during this interview, Luke says he really does have a sense of pride in being part of the Hartung farming legacy. His first memories are of going to the barn with his dad and he believes he has inherited a passion for farming from his father, grandfather and his Hartung ancestors. 
“I’ve loved the camaraderie of farming together and that every year on the farm is different,” says Luke. “We also have great neighbours that we chat with back and forth.”
Now 37, with a birthday in the spring, Luke also credits his work as an agronomist with helping him grow as a farmer himself. “I’ve talked to everyone in the industry all over mid-western Ontario and it has, for sure, given me a better understanding of how to farm.”
Like all the Hartungs before him, he has high hopes of passing the farm legacy on to the eighth generation, however long that may take. “I’ve never had a thought in my mind of selling,” he concludes. ◊