Center to support Arkansas farmers, food entrepreneurs opens in downtown Springdale

Times are tough for Arkansas farmers, who like many of their counterparts across the country, are dealing with challenges such as high input costs and low commodity prices for crops. Weather and pests also pose issues, but Jacob Rowell of Kings River Produce said the bigger problem is finding a market for produce once you grow it. 

“I can’t explain as a farmer how much time I had to spend marketing,” Rowell said. “Finding a market for your product is 75% of the battle, the other 25 percent’s growing it. You can figure out how to grow it, but it don’t do you no good to have 10,000 pounds of produce if you ain’t got nowhere to go with it.”  

It was “a game-changer” for the 29-year-old farmer when he began working with Spring Creek Food Hub. The nonprofit connects local farmers to wholesale institutions, specifically nonprofits like schools, hospitals and community health care clinics, Director of Operations Nena Hammer said.

Spring Creek provides technical assistance and equipment to Rowell, who said he’s been growing root crops, like carrots, on his farm near Eureka Springs and selling them to the food hub, which has distributed the produce to local schools. 

“It’s awesome. It really is awesome. I could see this thing growing the food community here in this part of the state tremendously,” he said. “I would like to see it grow where it’s reaching all corners of the state.”

Spring Creek works with about 65 farms across Arkansas, but could potentially reach more at its new home inside the new Market Center of the Ozarks, which celebrated its grand opening in downtown Springdale Thursday. 

The 45,000-square-foot food hub is designed to support local farmers and food entrepreneurs by providing resources like crop aggregation, certified commercial kitchens, cold storage and technical assistance to help strengthen Northwest Arkansas’ local food system, according to a press release. 

The $31 million facility is part of the Northwest Arkansas Food Systems initiative launched by the Walton Family Foundation in 2020. Plans for the Market Center of the Ozarks were announced in 2022.

Emily English, the foundation’s senior program officer for NWA Food Systems and director for Market Center of the Ozarks, told guests at the grand opening that the center will help shape the future of local food in Northwest Arkansas. 

“The investment in Market Center of the Ozarks was never about creating a standalone project,” English said. “It was about building the missing infrastructure that enables our community partners to do what they do best.”

In addition to Spring Creek, the new facility will also house the Arkansas Food Innovation Center at the Market Center of the Ozarks. An initiative of the University of Arkansas’ Division of Agriculture, the AFIC at MCO supports local entrepreneurs by offering a shared-use commercial kitchen, food processing and bottling capabilities and technical support.

Republican U.S. Sen. John Boozman said the facility will help Arkansas consumers more readily access food that’s grown and raised by local producers. 

“As chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, I’ve met with farmers and ranchers and producers from across the state who are eager to sell their products in their communities and explore new ways to sell directly to consumers,” Boozman said. “It makes all the sense in the world to connect the food that is grown and raised here to families and entrepreneurs in the region so they can have access to fresh food while supporting their hardworking neighbors.”

Boozman said he’s confident the new facility will serve as a model for other regions of the country looking for ways to support local farmers and food entrepreneurs. 

“You can’t just keep doing the same thing,” he said. “You have to figure new and innovative ways to go about solving a problem, and so hopefully this will be a great example, not only for the state of Arkansas but for the rest of the country as we move forward.”

Solutions for supporting farmers are of particular importance in Arkansas where agriculture generates a $24 billion economic impact annually and is the state’s largest industry. Hunger is also a problem for the Natural State, which at a rate of 19%, has the highest prevalence of food insecurity in the nation, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released last year.

“Market Center of the Ozarks is just one piece of a much larger puzzle,” English said. “It represents what’s possible when we invest not just in buildings but in people — in the farmers growing our food, the entrepreneurs launching new ideas and the organizations working every day to feed our families. Together we’re building a more connected, resilient local food system.”