Clifford Hatch and daughter Sorrel Hatch of Upinngil Farm
Upinngil Farm grows much of the Hard Red Winter Wheat found in your CSA share. They began growing wheat in 2005, with just five acres of crop. Since then, more acreage and improved processing and storage space has allowed them to expand production. They currently grow more than 25 acres of grains. This year’s wheat crop has been harvested with their McCormick combine, the seed cleaner has removed the chaff and weed seeds, and the grain is now drying in bins and bags in their dry, airy barn.
Upinngil comes from a tradition of New England family farming that reaches back to the early seventeenth century. Clifford Hatch grew up on his family’s farm in Granby, MA. After college, he obtained culinary training and embarked on a career as Chef de Cuisine, first at the Deerfield Inn and later at the Rhode Island Country Club. He and Patricia Crosby began their first farm in Seekonk, Massachusetts before moving to Gill in 1988. Cliff manages the farm’s land intensely and attentively, balancing the core values of sustainability, viability, practicality, and awareness of customer needs. In Cliff’s own words “Upinngil is a place and a business, but it is also a great deal more than that. It puts into action the belief that the key to regaining and maintaining environmentally sound farming practices is to re-establish the connection between consumers and the land that produces their food.”