REAP/SOW

Theodore and Helena discuss a kind of chaos that is almost becoming normal: painful layoffs and firings at a federal agency, which are then mostly undone not long after. This time it was the CDC, with the nation’s “disease detectives” going out the door and then back in before it even closed (among other layoffs.)  The context here is the shutdown of the federal government, which means talking abo...

In 2006, a recently created ICE cracked down on undocumented labor in meatpacking plants. Large meat companies were desperate for workers, and so they turned to a new source of vulnerable labor – refugees. This shift transformed the nation’s food economy and the cities and towns that feed us. Greeley, Colorado, home to the U.S. headquarters of JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, was transform...

Veteran food policy journalist Tom Philpott, one of the hosts of the Unconfined podcast from the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University, joins Helena and Theodore in a unique collaboration. Unconfined is a monthly interview show focused on the public-health implications of industrial meat production. They talk about why RFK Jr. rejected the UN Declaration on Noncommunicable Diseas...

In this episode, FERN Editor-in-Chief Theodore Ross talks food and power in the West. There’s Ted Genoways on a JBS meatpacking plant in Colorado; Jeremy Miller on how large pecan growers are strangling a declining Rio Grande; and Paisley Rekdal on the history of Chinese oppression and resistance through food in the United States. This episode is part of FERN’s special issue on food and power, pro...

The MAHA Commission has made big promises about what it would do to fix the nation’s food system and health. Its new strategy document includes 128 proposals for change – but little evidence that those changes can be made real. Helena and Theodore go through the report and ask: Did RFK Jr. bow to pressure from Big Ag? Is he more interested in cracking down on vaccine injury than high-fructose corn...

The impact of the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown is starting to show up in new preliminary census data, and that poses major problems for all parts of U.S. society, but particularly in our food system: Nearly half the country’s food system workers are immigrants. In this episode, Helena and Theodore go through the numbers, and explain why the chances of immigration reform are going d...

In this episode, Helena and Theodore talk about the MAHA commission’s leaked strategy report. Turns out that there’s more talk than action. Also: a former FDA chief challenges RFK Jr. to put up or shut up on ultraprocessed foods. And finally – MAGA vs. MAHA.

In this episode, Theodore and Helena discuss why the (non-vaxx) ideas of the MAHA movement are popular, but the movement itself is less so.. That split presents a major problem for Democrats, who can’t resist the Trump administration when it’s pushing for things they want. Also, does Coke taste better with cane sugar or high-fructose corn syrup? The answer: they taste about the same, and people pr...

In this episode, FERN contributor Lisa Morehouse reports on the Anderson Valley Grange Hall in California’s Mendocino County. She finds an organization, and a community, trying to adapt to a changing social landscape – and finding help at the Grange. “Whether it’s doing a holiday dinner or … hosting a local food bank, it’s a place where people can do what’s most natural to us, which is focus on ou...

The major companies that produce and sell ultraprocessed foods are making big changes, or at least they are promising to. The Trump administration has celebrated “wins” over companies as varied as PepsiCo and Steak ‘n Shake. It’s not clear whether decisions from these companies to change their products – out with synthetic dyes and in with beef tallow – are coming from pressure at the federal leve...

Helena and Theodore explain why Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski flipped to cast the deciding vote on Trump’s Big Beautiful Act: an exemption that rewards her state’s highest-in-the-nation SNAP error rates. They also take a look at how the law creates barriers to food assistance and healthcare, with paperwork, work requirements, and pushing administrative costs to the states. Finally, RFK Jr. has tal...

In 2024, the owners Mary Mahoney’s Old French House, an iconic restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi, pleaded guilty to fraudulently selling more than 29 tons of fish between December 2013 and November 2019, claiming it was locally caught when in fact it was imported. Quality Poultry and Seafood—another iconic Gulf Coast business—had sold mislabeled fish to other restaurants, too. Eventually, both bus...

In the “Double Take,” Helena and Theodore have Trump whiplash on the threat of mass deportations in the food system. In “Forks and Knives,” the discussion turns to the historic cuts to food assistance for low-income Americans that are playing out as the “One, Big Beautiful Bill” makes its way through Congress. And for “Good Vibes,” the federal Dietary Guidelines may drop recommendations for how mu...

American food politics are a mess. The traditional forces driving policy in agriculture and nutrition have been wiped away, and ordinary people are struggling to figure out who is in charge, what they’re up to, and why. Every two weeks, Forked hosts Helena Bottemiller Evich of Food Fix and Theodore Ross FERN's Editor-in-chief cut through the confusion, providing context and analysis, hopefully lea...

In 1910, Black farmers owned as many as 16 million acres of American farmland. Today that figure has plummeted. Between 1910 and 1997, Black Americans lost an estimated 90 percent of their farmland to violent land theft and discrimination. In this episode, courtesy of the FoodPrint podcast “What you’re eating,” Jerusha Klemperer interviews Brea Baker, author of Rooted: The American Legacy of Land...

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 –...

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 back...

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 bo...

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 t...

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...

The premiere of FERN’s newest podcast looks at how RKF Jr. is making waves on food policy.

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 u...

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.