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Date: 7/13/2022
WEST SPRINGFIELD – Immigrant and refugee groups are bringing a farmers market to Merrick in West Springfield and Brightwood in Springfield this season.
The market is organized by the food justice non-profit All Farmers. Refugee families from Bhutan, as well as Somalia and other East African countries, are among the autonomous farmer groups that All Farmers works with.
Bollo Mohamed was one of the vendors at the inaugural market on Main Street in West Springfield on July 7.
“I’m selling food, fresh fruits and vegetables. Fresh from the farms, nothing is added. It’s just fresh. And we’re here every Thursday from 3 to 6 [p.m.] at the West Springfield Boys & Girls Club,” she said.
Based in Springfield, All Farmers was founded in 2018 to help refugees in Western Massachusetts gain access to arable land to farm. The group supports more than 60 refugee and immigrant families, who grow food on primarily leased and licensed land near Springfield and Northampton.
“About 1,000 refugees come to Massachusetts each year, and about half of them are farmers,” said All Farmers Executive Director Hannah Spare.
The group is hoping to increase its land holdings to better support immigrant communities. It recently obtained a 2-acre lot in West Springfield that will serve as a community garden, and is hoping to acquire a larger plot of more than 5 acres within a short distance from the Brightwood neighborhood.
The program’s goals include economic, cultural and public health benefits, according to Spare.
“A lot of cultural vegetables and traditional foods aren’t available in grocery stores, and statistically when families coming to the United States assimilate to a U.S. diet, their health outcomes are worse. So empowering families to keep their food traditions is a good public health measure,” she said. “But it’s also about autonomy, culture, you know, having this supportive community space. A lot of farmers we work with don’t speak English fluently, so their employment options are limited. And this is a way that they can earn income for their families.”
“The farmers we work with take a lot of pride in what they do and being able to contribute,” she added.
“We are farmers, from back home. So we don’t just buy food and eat. We do our own food,” said Mohamed.
The farmers market will be open weekly through the end of October. Customers receiving Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program benefits (SNAP) can take advantage of the Healthy Incentives Program (HIP), which provides up to $80 in additional benefits for purchasing vegetables from participating vendors, which include All Farmers.