Martin Hatch (Town of Dryden)

A retired professor of ethnomusicology at Cornell, Hatch serves as a member of the Dryden Town Planning Board; he is the vice president of the board of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County and serves on its Environmental Program Committee; and he has been involved in food availability and policy issues in Tompkins County while serving on the board of the Caroline Food Pantry, the Brooktondale Community Center, and Friendship Donations Network, a local “food rescue” organization. For the past 44 years, he and his wife, Susan, have lived, grown vegetables, raised sheep, and two children on a small portion of a former dairy farm in the Town of Dryden. From 1998 to 2009 they helped to run a Community Supported Agriculture operation on their land that, at its high point, had over 100 families as members. For that period of time, they have provided most of the heat in their house with wood, and they installed a solar array in 2004 that covers most of their electricity needs.