Food for 9 Billion

Click here to ask for more information about this project:

Sorry, you need to install flash to see this content.

Scientific_Challenge_Marketplace_11-14-11.mp3

Website

Topics

Economy: Consumption, Corporations, Microcredit, Trade
Environment: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Genetics, Pollution, Soils
Health: Infant Mortality, Nutrition/Malnutrition
Human Development: Agriculture, Aid, Capacity Building, Children, Emergency Relief, Fisheries, Food, Intermediate Technology, International Cooperation, Land, MDGs, Population, Poverty, Refugees, Social Exclusion, Volunteering, Water/Sanitation, Youth
Human Rights: Gender, Social Exclusion
Politics: Globalization, Governance

Project Geography

US: National
International: Africa, Asia, North America, South America

Budget

Raised to date: $307,200.00
Estimate to complete: $1,247,667.00
Total Estimated Budget: $1,554,867.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 11/16/2011

Status

Production

Media Type

Other

Project End Use

Other: Radio features on Marketplace, TV features on PBS NewsHour and other shows. Also educational materials and interactive web features (including animations)..

Key Personnel

Jonathan Miller
Executive Producer

Executive producer Jonathan Miller is Homelands Productions’ executive director. He spent 13 years as a print and broadcast journalist in Asia and South America before returning to the USA in 2001 and devoting himself to radio. He was executive producer of Homelands’ “Worlds of Difference” and “WORKING” series and served as editorial director of Think Global, a week of special programming about globalization on more than 300 public radio stations and 30 national shows. He has also worked as a consulting writer, editor, and multimedia producer for international development organizations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Sandy Tolan
Senior Producer

Senior producer Sandy Tolan is author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, Booklist’s #1 nonfiction book of 2006 and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A co-founder of Homelands Productions, he has reported from more than 35 countries, often on land and resource issues, and has won many national and international awards for his radio features and documentaries. He is associate professor of journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at USC.

Sandy Tolan
Executive Producer (CIR)

Executive producer (CIR) Sharon Tiller is the director of digital media at the Center for Investigative Reporting. Before that, she helped develop numerous programs for FRONTLINE, including the four-part special “Drug Wars,” and “News War,” a multi-part series on the crisis in the media industry. In 2001, she helped develop and launch the international news magazine FRONTLINE/World. Before her work with FRONTLINE, Tiller was the executive director of CIR, where she developed several award-winning investigative documentaries.

Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)

A project that reaches millions of radio listeners, TV viewers, and web users around the world is, in itself, an ambitious outreach effort. But we plan to do more to engage audiences in what we hope will be a global conversation.

We will use:

Social media (blog, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.);
Youtube and other digital video platforms;
Membership and postings on professional listservs (for nutritionists, food activists, agricultural researchers, teachers, development communications specialists, etc.);
Email blasts to a continually-growing project mailing list;
Educational outreach and curricula created by Cornell University.

Funders

Name	Amount	Date
Acquisition fees (Marketplace & NewsHour)	$53,500.00	11/15/2011
Cornell University/NSF	$23,000.00	11/15/2011
Richard H. Driehaus Foundation	$30,000.00	10/15/2010
John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation	$250,000.00	05/27/2010
Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future	$5,000.00	02/01/2010

Location

4 The Byway
Ithaca, NY, 14850

See Google Maps

Short Synopsis

Food for 9 Billion is an independently produced feature series for public radio and TV that examines the social, environmental, economic, political, and technical dimensions of humankind's struggle to put food on the table. Production partners are Homelands Productions and the Center for Investigative Reporting; primary outlets are Marketplace and PBS NewsHour.

Description/Treatment

Food for 9 Billion is a multi-platform media project that examines the challenge of feeding the world at a time of growing demand, changing diets, rising food and energy prices, shrinking land and water resources, and accelerating climate change. The project launched with features on Marketplace on November 14 and 15, 2011.

Outputs

The main project outputs are:

· A year-long series of radio features on Marketplace, public radio’s daily show about business and economics, with a daily audience of roughly 3 million;

· A year-long series of video features on PBS NewsHour, public television’s flagship daily news program, seen by nearly 3 million viewers nightly;

· A dynamic online experience, including a website with video and audio features, blog, animations, infographics, interactive maps and timelines, and links to other resources;

· Curriculum materials designed by Cornell University for high school students;

· Intensive social media marketing and engagement around the release of each radio, video, and online feature;

· Micro-sites on PBS.org and Marketplace.org; and

· Full-length documentaries for television and radio.

Each of these elements will be anchored in high-quality journalism, emphasize powerful storytelling, and offer opportunities for audience response and engagement.

Partners & Roles

Food for 9 Billion is a collaborative effort of Homelands Productions, an award-winning independent nonprofit journalism cooperative specializing in radio documentaries; the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), one of the nation’s most innovative nonprofit investigative news organizations; and Cornell University, a world leader in research into agriculture, nutrition, and international development.

Homelands Productions is responsible for all radio content and overall project oversight, as well as for providing content for the educational materials. CIR is responsible for all television and web production. Both organizations will create web and social media content. Cornell University is responsible for creating interactive web elements (world food timeline and map) and curriculum materials. All of Cornell’s contributions are provided in kind.

Homelands Productions: Two Decades of Award-Winning Public Interest Journalism

Since its founding in 1990, Homelands Productions has produced seven major series for public radio. The group is known for its meticulously produced, human-scaled stories that illuminate complex issues, especially in the developing world. Homelands has reported from 56 countries and has been recognized with 22 national and international awards, including the Harry Chapin World Hunger Year Award, two Unity awards, two Robert F. Kennedy awards for reporting on the disadvantaged, and the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi Award for radio feature reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. Homelands Productions is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with its tax home in Arizona. It currently operates out of an office in Ithaca, NY. For more information, visit www.homelands.org.

Center for Investigative Reporting

Founded in 1977, the Berkeley-based Center for Investigative Reporting is the nation’s oldest nonprofit investigative news organization. Building on its long track record of award-winning print, broadcast, and web reporting, CIR is seeking to help lead the way in transforming journalism for the 21st century. CIR’s innovative model relies on in-depth collaboration with other news organizations, independent journalists, public policy organizations, and universities, and exploits new storytelling technologies to provide citizens with actionable information that impacts their lives. Reports have been distributed by more than 225 media outlets ranging from The Washington Post to FRONTLINE, La Opinion to NPR, and Yahoo! News to ABC-TV. For more information, visit www.centerforinvestigativereporting.org.