REAP/SOW
FERNREAP/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
2025 FERN
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
2025 FERN
The politics of food have changed over time. Michael Pollan talks about why – and what may happen now.
MAHA has had a tough time lately. Is it growing pains, or something deeper?
Should SNAP recipients be able to buy sugary foods?
Meatpackers risked everything at the JBS plant in Colorado to win better working conditions and wages – and they’re still pushing.
In the GOP primary for Iowa governor, MAHA-backed candidate Zach Lahn went up against Trump-backed Rob Sand. The results were … enlightening.
Serious setbacks for some MAHA leaders raise questions about the movement’s future
Senator Cory Booker talks MAHA, the farm bill, and more.
MAHA moms are angry about the Supreme Court and the Farm Bill. Have they had enough?
RFK Jr. said he’d closed a major food safety loophole, but that hasn’t happened yet.
A behind-the-scenes conversation on food waste with Katelan Cunningham from the Second Nature podcast.
A lawsuit pushing back on SNAP waivers for soda and sugary foods puts new restrictions in jeopardy.
The Haitian workers at the JBS flagship meatpacking plant are threatening to strike – and running the risk of being deported
Helena and Theodore dive deep into a new executive order promoting the production of the chemical herbicide glyphosate.
Helena and Theodore riff on the Mike Tyson Super Bowl ad and RFK Jr.'s 60 Minutes appearance.
Americans waste a LOT of food at home – but there are lots of high-impact, low-cost things we can do to change that.
A rollicking conversation with award-winning journalist Michael Grunwald, on junk food, the dietary guidelines, and why things may just work out for our food system.
If anyone knows what MAHA’s future holds, it’s Vani Hari, the Food Babe. So we asked her.
Theodore predicts the nation has reached peak MAHA. Helena is less certain.
Climate change, oil spills, and hurricanes are wiping out wild Gulf Coast oysters – and a way of life.
Industrial offshore aquaculture at massive scale is coming to the Gulf Coast. Is that a good thing?
Helena and Theodore drop in with What You’re Eating to talk about what’s up with MAHA
The MAHA movement has had surprising success at the state level. Will that translate into federal change?
An in-depth conversation with some of the writers and editors from FERN’s special issue on food and power in the West.
The government shutdown has unleashed chaos for SNAP. What now?
Updated reporting on how Haitian immigrant workers at the JBS meatpacking plant in Colorado fight to remain in the U.S.
The CDC fired more than 1,000 people and then unfired most of them. Again. What happened?
The inside story of how giant meatpacking companies shifted to refugee workers – and what that’s done to rural America
Helena and Theodore team up with Tom Philpott from Unconfined to talk MAHA, agriculture, and more.
In-depth interviews with some of FERN’s most best reporters about food and power in the West.
A new report from the MAHA commission did little to address pesticide use and barely used the word sugar. What will RFK Jr.’s base do about it?
New U.S. Census data shows that the Trumpian-vision for immigration is underway – what will the country do to make sure the food system still works?
The MAHA commission was supposed to rewrite the rules for the American food system. Why is their leaked strategy report so friendly to Big Ag?
Many Americans agree that the food system needs to change – whether they want the Trump administration to do it depends on their party.
At a moment of deep divisions, the nation's oldest agricultural advocacy group is still reaching across the aisle.
Are Trump’s “MAHA wins” over Big Food companies real, really good, or just really good politics?
Trump’s law pushes the costs of SNAP onto the states. Can they make it work? They’re going to have to.
Everyone loved the seafood at Mary Mahoney’s. Turns out “fresh” and “local” was a fraud.
The premiere episode of Forked looks at the Trump Administration’s deportation whiplash and the efforts to cut SNAP in Congress.
Trailer – Introducing Forked: Food politics in the MAHA age, presented by REAP/SOW
A writer delves into the history of how her family lost their farm – and how she found her way back to the land.
Tracing the poisonous impact of agricultural chemicals – from Missouri’s farmland, to Louisiana's “Cancer Alley,” and into the Gulf of Mexico.
The Trump Administration managed to turn the typically bland nomination for Surgeon General into an intra-MAGA battle pitting nutrition versus public health
In his new biography of Jose Cuervo, FERN staffer Ted Genoways traces the history of revolutionary-era Mexico through the tequila brand’s namesake and ‘maestro tequilero.’
Cohosts Theodore Ross and Helena Bottemiller Evich talk about RFK’s astonishing plan to fund research that will determine by September the causes of autism.
An in-depth conversation with iconic nutritionist Marion Nestle on the contested science and politics of ultraprocessed foods.
The premiere of FERN’s newest podcast looks at how RKF Jr. is making waves on food policy.
Haitians moved to Colorado to work for the world's largest meatpacker on the promise of good jobs and a place to stay—only to be mistreated. Now, Trump is trying to deport them.
Taped live during the Buzzkill celebration in New York City on March 3, 2025 this panel discussion looks at what citydwellers can do – and shouldn’t do – to protect pollinators.
Welcome to California’s “pollinator Super Bowl.”
Tequila is made from agave raised in an industrial monoculture at risk of collapse. The solution? Pollination by bats.
Want to make your home a refuge for pollinators? You’re gonna have to fight for it.
A Native American tribe turned away from industrial ag, embraced their identity, and helped pollinators.
What was killing a scientist’s bees? The curious case of the toxic corn seeds.
A sustainable food system can’t just rely on domesticated pollinators. Go wild!
A new limited series about the pollinator crisis – and what can be done to solve it. Premiering January 28. 2025.
The expansion of railways in the United States did more than transport people – it helped change society and the food system.
Life on a small farm means hard work, and just enough joy – and hopefully enough profit – to keep going.
Inside the world of the commercial divers working the irrigation canals in California’s Central Valley.
Scientists have long predicted that land loss in Louisiana will harm fisheries. That finally seems to be happening—to one of the state’s most iconic fish.
In California, a study of centuries-old irrigation ditches suggests the Nüümü people could rightfully lay claim to the waters of Owens Lake.
Found in everything from pizza boxes to rain jackets, PFAS - aka "forever chemicals" - are now being discovered in our farms, our food, and in our bodies.
FERN contributor Lisa Morehouse reports on a Japanese-American farmer who uncovers a shocking family secret.
This FERN/Snap Judgment partnership tells the story of how a massive bed of callo de hacha, a prized scallop, could have saved a struggling Mexican fishing village – and why it didn’t.
Episode four of REAP/SOW is the final installment of our partnership with Switchyard, as host Ted Genoways interviews writers Jori Lewis and Siddhartha Deb.
FERN editor-in-chief Theodore Ross interviews Chef Sean Sherman about decolonized food, in an episode from the Switchyard podcast.
Top Chef star Tom Colicchio sits down with longtime FERN contributor Ted Genoways for an in-depth conversation with the acclaimed celebrity chef
Introducing the latest audio project from the Food & Environment Reporting Network
Buying local makes us feel good, but does it really help the planet?
A bonus episode about beef from a show called “How to Save a Planet"
Most of our food comes from California. But in the very near future, climate change will force us to grow more food in other parts of the country. Here’s what that might look like.
To fight climate change, we need new crops that consume less water, protect the soil and lock away more carbon. For twenty years, scientists have been breeding a grain that does all that. Will farmers grow it? Will people eat it?
Most American farmers don’t believe man-made climate change is real. But if we’re serious about fighting climate change, we need those farmers to be part of the solution. How can we convince them to change how they farm?
In the opening episode of Hot Farm, we visit with Dave Bishop, a farmer who shown a willingness to change.
A new podcast from the Food & Environment Reporting Network about what the people who grow our food are doing, or could be doing, to combat climate change coming April 12.
How food became a right-wing movement, with Michael Pollan
June 2, 202649min 32sec
It’s been 20 years since Michael Pollan published The Omnivore's Dilemma, a book that drove a huge shift in how Americans thought about food and agriculture. He joins us to discuss how his ideas have been adopted across the spectrum of American food politics. Plus: psychedelics, consciousness, and Theodore’s favorite dim sum spot in Brooklyn.