Shows / REAP/SOW
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
REAP/SOWForked Live! with Tom Colicchio at the Brooklyn Museum
Top Chef head judge, restaurateur, and food advocate Tom Colicchio joins Helena and Theodore for a special live episode of Forked at the Brooklyn Museum. We…
REAP/SOWAre high beef prices enough to send Dan Osborn to the U.S. Senate?
One of the biggest fights brewing for control of the Senate is taking place in deep red Nebraska, where an industrial mechanic and Navy veteran named Dan…
REAP/SOWFighting for workers’ rights – and to stay in this country
The workers at the JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado went on strike and won a new contract with better pay and benefits. Many of those workers are…
REAP/SOWRep. Kat Cammack to Congress: Grow up and pass the farm bill
GOP rising star Kat Cammack drops by to talk with Theodore and Helena about the future of the farm bill, her perspective on SNAP fraud and errors, why some…
REAP/SOWTalkin’ MAHA and the Midterms
As the fight for Congress grows more tense, the difference between victory for Red or Blue may hinge on the MAHA movement. Are its members satisfied with what…
REAP/SOWDid Mitch McConnell’s return help resurrect the farm bill?
There was a Mitch McConnell sighting in the Senate last week, which could mean a proof of life for Mitch McConnell ... but probably not for the farm bill…
REAP/SOWWhy are America’s cattle ranchers beefing with Donald Trump?
Forked is back for a third season, and the premiere episode is all about BEEF. The cattle ranchers are beefing with the president about importing tariff-free…
REAP/SOWA conversation with Kelly Ryerson, aka Glyphosate Girl
The grassroots activist and MAHA leader Kelly Ryerson, known as Glyphosate Girl, has been an influential voice on agricultural issues for years. But with the…
REAP/SOWDid MAHA really go from dominant to done?
Some parts of the media have pronounced MAHA DOA PDA. But maybe they’re just FOI? Helena and Theodore discuss. They also tackle the staggering, stunning, Holy…
REAP/SOWSNAP bans on sugary foods were blocked in federal court. Now what?
A signature goal of the MAHA-backed USDA was to stop SNAP recipients from using their benefits to purchase sugary foods. They were on their way to achieving…
REAP/SOWWorkers take on the world’s largest meat processor
America’s meat supply is produced largely by vulnerable immigrant workers, many of whom have been targeted by the Trump Administration. But a group of workers…
REAP/SOWMAHA vs Trump in Iowa — guess who won.
This episode dives deep into the impact the MAHA movement has been having on the midterm elections. Zach Lahn was the first statewide candidate endorsed by…
REAP/SOWHow food became a right-wing movement, with Michael Pollan
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…
REAP/SOWHave we reached peak MAHA or is this just a bad week?
The MAHA movement has hit some turbulence. Is it a few bumps or is it gonna crash? Casey Means for Surgeon General didn’t happen. Marty Makary flamed out at…
REAP/SOWCory Booker finds hope in food policy
The senior senator from the Garden State has taken a leading role on the food and ag issues that we care about at Forked. We were so excited that Cory Booker…
REAP/SOWIs the MAHA movement Roundup ready?
The Supreme Court recently heard arguments in Monsanto v. Durnell, a case that could decide the fate of state-level glyphosate warning-label lawsuits — and…
REAP/SOWDoing it live with Leah Douglas and Sean Sherman, the Sioux Chef
What happens when you get a James-Beard-Award-winning chef together with one of the best food and ag daily reporters out there for a live, in-depth…
REAP/SOWFood safety Mission Accomplished – or not so much?
How would you feel if someone told you one of the most pressing problems in food safety in this country was fixed? Now how would you feel if you learned that…
REAP/SOWA conversation about fighting food waste with Katelan Cunningham
This episode dives back into the issue of food waste, why it matters, and what you can do about it. But it’s also a behind-the-scenes conversation about…
REAP/SOWSoda wars: fighting new SNAP restrictions in the states
In this episode, Helena and Theodore look at how efforts to allow states to ban soda and candy purchases for SNAP recipients may fizzle out — for now. We also…
REAP/SOWThese immigrant meatpacking workers are risking it all in a labor fight
FERN senior editor Ted Genoways traveled to Colorado to report on a strike vote by the unionized workers at the JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley. Many of these…
REAP/SOWJust how mad is MAHA about glyphosate?
In this episode, Helena and Theodore do a … Roundup … of what people who don’t have time to come up with better nicknames are calling “glyphogate.” It’s an…
REAP/SOWCan Mike Tyson really kick some ultraprocessed butt (and save lives!)?
Helena and Theodore talk about Iron Mike Tyson’s mama-said-knock-you-out vibes on ultraprocessed foods, RFK Jr. tag-teaming with David Kessler on 60 Minutes…
REAP/SOW“What can we do to reduce food waste?” from Second Nature podcast
A third of the food Americans produce goes to waste, and a shocking amount of that waste happens in our own homes. But reducing food waste is possible, if we…
REAP/SOWReporter Michael Grunwald tells us why he has hope for our food system future
Our guest on this episode is Michael Grunwald, a journalist and the author of We are Eating the Earth: The race to fix our food system and save our climate…
REAP/SOWThe Food Babe dishes on MAHA’s next moves
Helena and Theodore are joined by Vani Hari, “the Food Babe,” a New York Times Best Selling Author, wellness entrepreneur, and social media influencer. This is…
REAP/SOWForked welcomes in the new year with bold (and unsubstantiated) predictions!
It’s 2026 and Forked has returned from a short holiday break. Helena and Theodore are excited – and maybe a little nervous – to see what happens in the second…
REAP/SOWThe future of Louisiana oysters is farmed
The Gulf Coast is one of the last places in the world where there is still a major wild oyster harvest. Lately, though, that harvest is in trouble. In this…
REAP/SOWWhat’s the problem with offshore aquaculture?
Americans now eat more farmed seafood than they do from the wild ocean. That’s turned farming fish into big business, one that consumers have benefited from…
REAP/SOWForked goes on the road with the What You’re Eating podcast
In this episode, Helena and Theodore take the show on the road, talking many things MAHA and more with Jerusha Klemperer, host of the What You’re Eating…
REAP/SOWLive in DC – A Forked special event on MAHA momentum
This episode explores whether MAHA momentum in the states translates into actual policy change nationwide. Helena and Theodore host the first episode of Forked…
REAP/SOWFood, power, and hope in the American West
In this postscript to FERN’s special issue of High Country News, Food and Power in the West, Mary-Charlotte Domandi, host of Radio Café’s Down to Earth…
REAP/SOWThe federal government shutdown and the SNAP default
In this episode, Helena and Theodore look at the federal government shutdown and what it means for SNAP. Also, the Truth Social post from President Trump to…
REAP/SOWUpdate: Immigrant meatpacking workers are still under threat
In February, FERN senior editor Ted Genoways investigated how JBS, the world’s largest meat producer, had come to rely heavily on Haitian migrants and other…
REAP/SOWHow many people did they actually fire at the CDC?
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…
REAP/SOWHow refugees remade a Colorado meatpacking town
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…
REAP/SOWSpecial episode: A collaboration with the Unconfined podcast
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…
REAP/SOWFERN’S special issue on food and power, with High Country News
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…
REAP/SOWHow the MAHA Commission’s strategy doc was a win for Big Ag
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…
REAP/SOWThe U.S. has lost 1.2 million immigrants since January. What happens now?
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…
REAP/SOWWhat happens if RFK Jr.’s radical reinvention of the food system…isn’t so radical?
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…
REAP/SOWWhat makes MAHA so popular?
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…
REAP/SOWSmall town's residents find common ground at the Grange
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…
REAP/SOWDid Coca-Cola really say it was going to switch to sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup?
The major companies that produce and sell ultraprocessed foods are making big changes, or at least they are promising to. The Trump administration has…
REAP/SOWHow bad are the SNAP cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Act?
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…
REAP/SOWDoes anyone in Biloxi care about seafood fraud?
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…
REAP/SOWForked: Trump stopped immigration enforcement raids on food system workers – but not for long
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…
REAP/SOWIntroducing: Forked, presented by REAP/SOW
American food politics are a mess. The traditional forces driving policy in agriculture and nutrition have been wiped away, and ordinary people are struggling…
REAP/SOWBlack land loss: A Conversation with Brea Baker from What You're Eating
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…
REAP/SOWFertilizer’s toxic journey
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…
REAP/SOWForked: MAHA drama as food fighters duke it out with anti-vaxxers
Theodore Ross and Helena Bottemiller Evich work through the tumultuous nomination process for Surgeon General. Donald Trump’s first nominee withdrew (questions…
REAP/SOWMexico’s Spirit: A Conversation with Ted Genoways, author of ‘Tequila Wars’
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…
REAP/SOWForked: RFK Jr.’s ‘massive’ promise to ‘eliminate’ autism ‘exposures’
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…
REAP/SOWTo me, it’s junk food – a Q and A with Marion Nestle
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…
REAP/SOWForked: Among the MAHA Moms
The premiere of FERN’s newest podcast looks at how RKF Jr. is making waves on food policy.
REAP/SOWTrouble on the Line
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…
REAP/SOWBuzzkill Bonus Episode: “Is urban beekeeping bad for bees?”
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…
REAP/SOWBuzzkill: A post-pollinator world
The Golden State’s annual almond harvest shows what happens when biodiversity collapses and bees become a commodity valuable enough to steal.
REAP/SOWBuzzkill: Bats and the blue agave
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…
REAP/SOWBuzzkill: 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…