REAP/SOW
Dispatches from the frontlines of food, farming, and the environment. From the Food & Environment Reporting Network, the producers of Hot Farm, REAP/SOW brings you narrative and investigative reporting that examines the consequences of what we choose to eat and why. Currently featuring BUZZKILL, a six-part series on the pollinator crisis
Episodes
The chemical industry is a cornerstone of modern American farming. It helps grow the food billions of people eat. It’s also causing vast environmental damage. In this episode of REAP/SOW, produced in collaboration with WWNO’s Sea Change podcast, you’re going to hear the story of synthetic fertilizer, and how this powerful concoction of chemicals has radically reshaped how we farm and what we eat – and how it’s poisoning co...
Theodore Ross and Helena Bottemiller Evich work through the tumultuous nomination process for Surgeon General. Donald Trump’s first nominee withdrew (questions about her medical and anti-vaxx credentials) and the newest one, Casey Means, has been branded a “Marxist tree hugger” by Laura Loomer. (Questions also remain about her anti-vaxxness). Conversation addresses the split within the groups backing HHS Secretary Robert F...
FERN editor-in-chief Theodore Ross talks to Genoways about his new book, Tequila Wars, which is an extraordinary exploration of the little-known – and often bloody history – of Jose Cuervo. Cuervo’s life, and his struggle to bring stability and prosperity to his industry during the profound disruptions of the Mexican revolutionary era, is an epic tale. This new book pulls Cuervo’s name off the bottle and pours it into real...
Is it possible that RFK Jr. believes autism research can be done so fast because he already thinks he knows what those causes of autism are? Other topics include: RFK Jr. “hitting his stride” after attending the funeral of a child who died of measles. How many people have been laid off at HHS and why doesn’t anybody know? Bipartisan bonhomie on the issue of plant-based milk, in a Senate proposal that almost no one thinks w...
Americans increasingly rely on processed food products as key parts of their everyday meals, even as scientists are just starting to scratch the surface in understanding how these food products influence our health. Now, these products have reached the political discourse. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has targeted ultraprocessed foods as a key part of his plan to “Make America Healthy Again.” As part of FERN’s special series in p...
This is a story about how a single TikTok video, taped in 2023 outside a meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado would change the lives of hundreds of Haitian immigrants, and embroil JBS – the world’s largest meatpacking company – in a controversy over mistreating workers. Reported by FERN senior producer Ted Genoways and produced in partnership with Reveal, this episode dives deep into a poorly understood part of the food ...
This is an engaging conversation on urban pollinators taped live during the Buzzkill celebration in New York City on March 3, 2025, moderated by Sewell Chan, executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, with Buzzkill host Teresa Cotsirilos, Sara Hobel, executive director of the Horticultural Society of New York, and Rebecca Louie, executive director of the Bee Conservancy.
The Golden State’s annual almond harvest shows what happens when biodiversity collapses and bees become a commodity valuable enough to steal.
Nearly all tequila is made from cloned plants that are vulnerable to species collapse. In Mexico, a small group of people is trying to change that – and protect an endangered, nectar-slurping, agave-pollinating bat that’s only three inches long.
A suburban couple was passionate about pollinators, native plants, and living in harmony with nature. Their neighbors were not impressed. This “battle of the backyard” turned out to have national implications.
White settlers viewed farmland as a resource to be exploited, while Indigenous people saw it as a partnership for mutual benefit. Now, a Native American tribe is solving today’s environmental problems and helping pollinators with ancient techniques.
In Nebraska, a researcher’s bee colonies kept dying, and the evidence pointed to the ethanol plant next door – and a food system built on pesticides.
Americans stepped up to do something about dying bees. But what if all those backyard colonies are making the problem worse? In Buzzkill’s premiere episode, we take an in-depth look at whether raising domesticated bees, especially in cities, is harming the wild species we need to preserve biodiversity.
We’re in the middle of a full-blown biodiversity crisis: American honeybee populations have declined by 90 percent in the last two decades. It's not rocket science. How we produce our food is killing off the very pollinators that food relies on. But don't panic, because it is not too late to fix this – and Buzzkill will show you how. Premiering January 28. 2025.
Here’s a thing you may not know about the Transcontinental Railroad: It helped turn California into an agricultural powerhouse – transforming the food system – and it also galvanized a series of Civil Rights victories. This episode, reported by FERN contributor Lisa Morehouse, was produced in partnership with “California Foodways” and KQED’s alifornia Report” podcast.
Nic Theisen and his wife, Sara, operate a small but bustling farm in northern Michigan, growing flowers and vegetables with the help of a large team of farmworkers. It's backbreaking work, the farm hardly makes a profit… and Nic's a little surprised he’s doing this at all. It’s real life on a small farm. This episode, originally entitled “Labor of Mixed Emotions” is courtesy of the “Points North” podcast, and was originall...
California transports water to Central Valley farmers through a complex network of reservoirs, aqueducts, and canals. This water system is controversial… and without constant maintenance, it might collapse. For REAP/SOW, reporter Lisa Morehouse, host of the “California Foodways” podcast, profiles California’s irrigation canal divers. This episode was produced in partnership with “California Foodways” and KQED’s “California...
Boyce Upholt's report on the environmental threat to redfish on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana anchors this episode of REAP/SOW. It dives deep into the cultural history of this fish that was made globally famous by Paul Prudhomme’s blackened redfish dish, while also engaging with the modern-day politics driving how much – if at all – it should be taken from the water. This episode was produced in partnership with WWNO’s “Sea ...
Los Angeles was running out of water in the early 1900s, and Payahuunadü, "land of flowing water" in the Nüümü language, had lots of it. City officials hatched a plan to take the water from what white settlers had renamed the Owens Valley. Today, about a third of L.A.'s water comes from Payahuunadü and other parts of the Eastern Sierra, and many of its streams and lakes are mostly gone. FERN staff writer and REAP/SOW host ...
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