Food, Water & Emergency Preparedness: Building Resilience for Every New Yorker

Governor’s Note: If COVID, inflation, and global conflict have taught us anything—it’s that dependency is vulnerability. New York must never again be caught off guard by supply chain collapse, fuel outages, or food insecurity. I believe every family, town, and region deserves a path to preparedness. That’s not paranoia. That’s policy.

What It Takes to Get It Done: We can’t wait for Washington to act. We build security from the ground up. As Governor, I will:

• Declare a Food & Water Infrastructure State of Emergency and mandate county-by-county risk assessments for food scarcity and water access.
• Establish the NY Preparedness Corps: a civilian training and supply force equipped for disaster relief, food/water storage, and rural sustainability programs.
• Invest in regenerative farming co-ops using state-owned land and partnerships with schools, churches, and nonprofits to feed local communities and reduce dependency on global markets.
• Create the NY Seed & Supply Bank System: a distributed network of long-term seed vaults, emergency rations, and backup water filters for every county.
• Upgrade all state reservoirs and water delivery systems with anti-contamination measures, solar backups, and cyber-attack defenses.
• Pass the Community Food Sovereignty Act to protect home gardening, livestock ownership, barter exchange, and open-market food sales.

Why This Matters to You

• More than 2.2 million New Yorkers live in USDA-defined food deserts, where access to affordable, nutritious food is extremely limited.
• Upstate New York has lost 70% of its dairy farms since the 1990s. Local production is vanishing while supermarket prices surge.
• NYC relies on food shipped in by truck from over 1,200 miles away. One fuel or weather crisis—and shelves go empty in days.
• Only 16% of NY municipalities have active emergency food reserve plans.
• Water infrastructure is aging badly: more than 40% of NY’s water mains are over 60 years old, risking leaks and contamination.
• Recent lead contamination in schools and towns like Hoosick Falls shows how unprepared we are to detect or fix water crises quickly.
• Electricity outages and cyberattacks have shut down water pumps and food storage systems in at least 9 NY counties since 2021.
• Children in low-income areas are 3x more likely to go hungry during holiday or summer school closures due to food insecurity.
• Just 72 hours without food or water can collapse public order during a crisis. We cannot afford to rely solely on federal FEMA response.
• Resilient systems save lives, reduce panic, and protect liberty when things go wrong.

This isn’t about hoarding—it’s about harvesting strength, building backup, and restoring sovereignty to every New Yorker from the ground up.