Our Hunger Awareness Week coverage continues with the story of a farmer's dream to expand access to nutrition in a so-called food desert.
Hameed Bello and his wife Ayo recently opened Farm Store 99, across the street from the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield — an area where fresh produce is hard to come by.
We visited the new store and asked Bello about his background and motivation.
Hameed Bello: I was born in Nigeria and raised all over. And then my parents migrated to the states and then I was able to join them years later and went to school out here in the states around the Texas area and then western Mass. and then for educational pursuits. And then I never left.
Kari Njiiri, NEPM: What was it about this place that kept you here?
The people, the community and also the opportunity that we found that we could be of service.
That sense of service, as well as the number 99 in the store's name, is an integral part of Bello and his wife's Muslim faith. He said this food venture is a way of achieving that goal.
In Nigeria, part of our curriculum was agriculture and we took courses. That starts from what type of soil and organic practices. I've always had a love for that. My educational pursuits was in pharmaceutical science. And I understand the correlation between nutrition and the overall well-being.
And we're all about — food is medicine. So that's one of the reasons why we're like, "Hey, let's take this agricultural knowledge that we know. We know how to farm, we know how to grow crops." We did a study of growing and what grows in the East Coast for a year or two, just to know how and what to grow out here.
You operate a farm, as well?
Yes. They're symbiotic. The store is a farm store, right? So what we try to do is a lot of our crops that we grow, we try to bring them over to sell and make it accessible. And for crops that we don't grow and we don't grow in Massachusetts, we try to source it from other local vendors and also other vendors that can get us those products. Because it's hard to grow pineapple in Massachusetts. But, you know, the community still demands pineapple.
What kind of produce do you grow?
We grow a lot of different types of vegetables — some greens, root vegetables. We grow collard greens, okra, beets, spinach, arugula, cucumbers, tomatoes and all that good stuff.
Was that prompted by your research in terms of what customers wanted?
Yes. And also the study that we did in terms of what can grow and grow well in Massachusetts, along with us incorporating some ethnic food like okra and stuff like that, based on the ethnic demand for it. And so, we try to incorporate those type of ethnic foods into what we grow.
Part of the farm store is organic. Is it all organic?
It's not all organic. It's a mix, but a large majority of it, we try to make sure it's organic.
One thing that the customer[s] dictated is not all of them can afford the organic options. So why provide something that they cannot afford, while we can also provide the alternatives. So we try to make sure there's organic options and also the non-organic options. So that way everyone can get access to food.
Talk about why you decided to have the store in this particular area. This is downtown. You're below a high-rise apartment building which caters to mainly low-income residents, but you're also not far from more expensive condominiums.
There are a lot of individuals and a lot of groups that helped make that decision possible. People at the Springfield Food Policy Council, for example, helped give us insight to identify, where is the place with the most need, right? And where can we be of utmost service?
Initially, we weren't going to do this location just because we were considering parking. But there's a dense population of people here that have the challenges that needs to be met as it relates to food access. So we decided here is a location that is just about 3,300 square foot. How can we design it to be a one stop shop to meet all their food access needs?
Bello said the store also offers hot lunch meals on weekdays, and will soon offer the Instacart online ordering system, so customers can have their groceries delivered.
As for the parking issue, Bello is hoping it will be helped when the nearby new MassMutual Center garage opens next spring.
