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
- Update frequency
- every 13 days
- Average duration
- 33 minutes
- Episodes
- 44
- Years Active
- 2022 - 2025
Buzzkill: The lawn war
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 imp…
00:39:22 |
Tue 18 Feb 2025
Buzzkill: Colonialism and the land
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 problem…
00:35:33 |
Tue 11 Feb 2025
Buzzkill: The mystery of the dead bees
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.
00:40:30 |
Tue 04 Feb 2025
Buzzkill: Save which bees?
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 raisin…
00:31:02 |
Tue 28 Jan 2025
Introducing: Buzzkill, presented by REAP/SOW
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…
00:02:47 |
Tue 21 Jan 2025
The railroad's surprising impact on food and civil rights in California
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 Civi…
00:27:44 |
Fri 17 Jan 2025
“Farmin’ ain’t easy” from the Points North 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 h…
00:16:17 |
Tue 15 Oct 2024
The divers keeping the water flowing on California’s farms
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 co…
00:17:28 |
Thu 15 Aug 2024
Redfish blues
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 global…
00:39:55 |
Tue 09 Jul 2024
A native people fight for their stolen waters
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 whit…
00:28:50 |
Thu 06 Jun 2024
The forever chemicals on the farm from What You’re Eating
This episode, courtesy of the podcast “What you’re eating,” heads to Maine to investigate PFAS, a category of chemicals known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down over time. Found in …
00:56:24 |
Thu 02 May 2024
Farming with ghosts
David “Mas” Masumoto says he farms with ghosts. This episode of REAP/SOW is a FERN/KQED California Report partnership, telling the story of a Japanese-American farming family that’s survived generati…
00:30:42 |
Thu 04 Apr 2024
White gold fever from Snap Judgment
In a small fishing village in Mexico, Belen Delgado made a discovery that would change his life: a massive cache of callo de hacha, a large black scallop that’s one of the most prized species in the …
00:27:59 |
Tue 05 Mar 2024
Weaponized food from The Switchyard Podcast
FERN contributor Ted Genoways interviews Jori Lewis and Siddhartha Deb, two writers taking on popular foods and their fraught cultural history – the racist cultural history of the watermelon, and the…
00:50:18 |
Thu 15 Feb 2024
The Sioux Chef’s decolonized cuisine from The Switchyard Podcast
FERN Editor-in-chief Theodore Ross interviews Sean Sherman, the Sioux Chef, co-owner of Owamni, a James-Beard-Award winning restaurant in Minneapolis that is decolonizing food by using only indigenou…
00:46:48 |
Tue 13 Feb 2024
Tom Colicchio: Finding my voice in food 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. Part 1 of a collaboration between FERN and Switchyard…
00:51:14 |
Thu 08 Feb 2024
Introducing REAP/SOW!
REAP/SOW: dispatches from the front lines of food, farming, and the environment, is the latest audio project from the Food and Environment Reporting Network, an independent, non-profit news organizat…
00:05:18 |
Thu 01 Feb 2024
Hot Farm Bonus Episode: Climavores - "Bursting the 'eat local' bubble"
From our friends at Climavores: The eat local movement is huge. Bumper stickers in liberal towns across the U.S. tell us to “Eat local” or ask “Who’s your farmer?” But eating local food may be wildly…
00:32:21 |
Thu 28 Jul 2022
Hot Farm Bonus Episode: "Should I Give up Beef?" from How to Save a Planet
We have a bonus episode from a show called “How to Save a Planet,” a Spotify Original podcast produced by Gimlet Media. This show looks at climate change from the lens of — OK, so what do we do about…
00:41:21 |
Tue 28 Jun 2022
Hot Farm Part 4. The New California
More than a fourth of our food, including most of our fruits and vegetables, comes from California. But what happens when drought parches the region we depend upon to eat? Producer Travis Lux travels…
00:30:11 |
Tue 03 May 2022
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