A new generation of farmers: Health scare leads family to organic growing

BAILEYS HARBOR — The Lutseys — brothers Matt and Jeff and parents Tom and Sharon — have more than 500 head of beef cattle grazing on Door County pastures, almost 7,000 meat and egg chickens, and a couple hundred hogs in a farrow-to-finish operation, but they came into it only eight years ago with essentially no farming experience.

“We’re a new-generation farm,” explained Matt, who is chief operations officer of the family’s Waseda Farms. “My great-grandfather and grandfather were dairy farmers. (Grandpa) got out of that and got into the ice cream business, and we kind of ventured away from farming. My grandfather said he did everything he could so we would never have to be farmers again, but my father didn’t really listen to him.”