As the fall harvest season arrives each year, the economic significance of agriculture in the Peoria area becomes highly visible.
That’s a fact Greater Peoria Economic Development Council CEO Chris Setti has come to appreciate after growing up in suburban Los Angeles.
“I had to drive miles and miles and miles before I’d see any sort of commercial-scale farming, so it’s just something I didn’t understand. Then I lived in Chicago, and I lived in Denver, and I’ve lived in a lot of places that had a lot of concrete,” Setti said.
“It’s here in Peoria that I really got to understand the economic impact of agriculture, and we have a lot of agricultural power here. But it isn’t just the farming side of things, right? It’s that intersection of manufacturing and technology and agriculture.”
Setti points to Peoria being home of the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, commonly called the Ag Lab, in stressing the importance of working with other stakeholders to pursue advancement in ag tech.
“We’ve tried to foster conversations between farmers and innovators,” he said. “Innovation happens when people spot problems and then (seek) solutions to those problems. Farmers are the original inventors, right? How do you tame wild land to make it be productive, scaled farming? So, how do we take that and turn that into more opportunities in this region?”
Setti says the key is capitalizing on Greater Peoria’s placement in that intersection of agriculture and manufacturing.
“We are lucky that we’re in the middle of the world when it comes to manufacturing, and it’s such an important part, underlying part, of what our economy is,” Setti said. “So on that workforce (development) is: how are we positioning ourselves and our workforce to understand that there are great jobs in the manufacturing sector?
“(It’s) really important to highlight Manufacturing Month as a way of saying this is an important part. You know, the things that we use are made by somebody, and many of those things are made right here in Central Illinois.”
With October’s designation as Manufacturing Month, Setti emphasizes the industry’s importance to the Peoria economy.
“We have some, just some really great companies that make things that we might use every day – but then also things that we’ll never use,” he said. “But because they’re made here, we get to use other things, right?
“I think of the tractors that are made and the bulldozers that are made and the mining trucks that are made that might not ever get used here, but because they’re in use somewhere, we get to use the raw materials that go into other things.”
Touting Natural Fiber Welding’s selection as a finalist for the international Earthshot prize worth 1 million British pounds, Setti says anything that puts Peoria in the spotlight helps boost the region’s economic profile.
“We are always going to be known as an advanced manufacturing and heavy metals manufacturing (center), right? We have Komatsu and Caterpillar and their supply chains that are here,” Setti said. “The idea of a company like NFW is amazing. First of all, it’s not anything– it’s the opposite of metals, right? It’s plant-based materials.
“What an awesome story that is around innovation and entrepreneurship and scalability and the impact that what was once a very small company can have on a community.”
Setti says the GPEDC’s relocation into the Distillery Labs innovation hub in downtown Peoria – along with the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce and eventually the Women’s Business Development Center – puts them in a better position to help grow the region’s economy.
“Distillery Labs is something that Greater Peoria Economic Development Council has led as a community economic initiative since 2016, so it’s only fitting that we’re also then a part of the implementation of this solution,” Setti said.
“The idea behind Distillery Labs is kind of being the center – the geographic center, the physical center – of this Peoria ecosystem, that when you come here as someone who is looking to start a business, you don’t maybe have to go lots of other places to get that (information), that there’s a lot here. We have lots of great partners around the community that have their own place-based organizations, but having a confluence of those resources here in this building is just really important.”
Setti says one of the biggest challenges Peoria faces is having enough available industrial space for companies that might be looking to relocate.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword; you don’t want a lot of vacant industrial space, because then you have a different problem,” he said. “But it is tough when a lot of those requests that come through are looking for 100,000 or 200,000 square feet of existing building space with high ceilings, something north of 30 feet. That’s hard to find in this region.”
Setti also touts the region’s various ongoing workforce development efforts, noting their recent two-day Career Spark event at the Peoria Civic Center presented 4,000 eighth-graders with future career possibilities. The students from more than 70 schools across the region got the opportunity to participate in numerous activities related to various career pathways.
“This is important, early-on exposure to careers for students, even at this age. We’re not asking kids to figure out what they want to be when they grow up and just lock into that, but be exposed to those careers,” he said.
“Those are careers that are available to every student in Greater Peoria, whether you’re from a low-income, urban school district or you’re from a rural school district. Those careers are all available, and so that’s progress that I think we’re making.”