Food for Thought is the newest project from 88.3 WAER Syracuse, focusing on the state’s largest economic sector: agriculture. In the past decade, employment in New York’s agricultural economy has grown by 25.4%, and our community is centrally located in this growth. The state has designated Central New York, along with the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier, as the Grow-NY region, an area rich in resources. To support growth in these areas, New York is investing a minimum of $9 million over the next three years to spur innovation and position this region as one of the top food producers in the world. This is an extension of our City Limits Project, which takes a close and expanded look at topics in the Syracuse community.
This investment in the agricultural industry will have impacts on the economy, technology and the environment here in Syracuse and beyond. Around 10 billion people will need to be fed by 2050, and the world is trying to figure out how to produce enough food. This problem is being tackled here in Central New York, and through Food for Thought, we plan to look at how members of our community are trying to solve this problem, and who is being impacted along the way.
We plan to take an in-depth look at these issues: what jobs could be created and who would get them, how we grow and transport food affects what can be bought in certain communities, how technology will affect how we produce staple New York crops like apples, dairy products and cherries, how the environment will be impacted as change comes to the agriculture, and other topics that will change the way our community interacts with food.
Food for Thought will run over the course of two to three months in 2020 and produce between 8 and 9 stories from members of our newsroom. The first piece is scheduled to release on Tuesday March 3rd. All new episodes will available on WAER.org.