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Food & Environment Reporting Network Independent, non-profit journalism at the intersection of food, agriculture, and the environment

The Food & Environment Reporting Network produces independent, non-profit journalism at the intersection of food, agriculture, and the environment.

09/24/2026

Would you pay more for beef with a "Made in the USA" sticker? 🥩

Carlin McCarthy breaks down Trump's imported beef plan in the first video of Hot Off the Grill, our new current events series. Tell us what you'd choose 👇

09/23/2026

Sneak peek! 👀 A brand new Forked episode lands tomorrow, with Theodore Ross (FERN) and Helena Bottemiller Evich (Food Fix) breaking down the week in food and farm politics.

Watch the clip, then tune in tomorrow wherever you get your podcasts. 🎧

09/21/2026

Heat deaths among U.S. workers have climbed since 2021, and only seven states have heat safety standards on the books.

A bill in Congress, the Heat Workforce Standards Act (HR 6213), would block OSHA from creating a national one. Supporters say a federal rule would be costly and unworkable for small employers. Worker advocates say that without it, people in fields, kitchens, and warehouses are left exposed as summers get hotter.

FERN's Carlin McCarthy explains what the bill does and doesn't do in A Look at Labor, a new series on the workers who keep our food system running. Follow FERN for new episodes every other Monday this fall.

Workers concerned about heat exposure can find National COSH's Heat Organizing Toolkit here: https://nationalcosh.org/heat-organizing-toolkit

84% of Americans think the government should be keeping harmful ingredients out of our food and less than half think tha...
09/21/2026

84% of Americans think the government should be keeping harmful ingredients out of our food and less than half think that’s actually happening.

Jane Black profiles Jesse Gabriel, the Democratic California lawmaker behind the "Skittles ban," who has been quietly doing the job the FDA won't and whose fourth food bill was just signed into law over the weekend.

Read the full story: https://thefern.org/2026/09/meet-americas-de-facto-food-safety-chief/

Part of MAHA & The Midterms, a special series from FERN with Mother Jones and POLITICO. Art by Mark Harris.

09/18/2026

The MAHA movement was built by women who wanted Big Food and Big Ag cleaned up. Instead, HHS got busy with protein and testosterone. Jill Filipovic reports on the grassroots movement in the latest piece of our special series "MAHA Moms Built a Movement. MAGA Bros Have Taken It Over."

https://thefern.org/2026/09/department-of-meatheads/

MAHA & The Midterms, a special series in partnership with Mother Jones and POLITICO

09/17/2026

Why did a movement built by women hand its top jobs to men?

Jill Filipovic reported on what the moms who built MAHA want before the midterms. Read the full story here: https://thefern.org/2026/09/department-of-meatheads/

MAHA & The Midterms, a special series with Mother Jones and POLITICO.

The women of Make America Healthy Again did the organizing, while the men got the power.Jill Filipovic looks at how MAHA...
09/16/2026

The women of Make America Healthy Again did the organizing, while the men got the power.

Jill Filipovic looks at how MAHA went from a movement of moms fighting food dyes and pesticides to one run primarily by men including RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, and podcast doctors. The question is: With the midterms coming, how will the women who built MAHA vote?

Read the full story: https://thefern.org/2026/09/department-of-meatheads/

Part of MAHA & The Midterms, a special series from FERN with Mother Jones and POLITICO. Art by Mark Harris.

Chile needed more fruit to keep up with growing demand. So in 1998 it approved a European bumblebee, Bombus terrestris, ...
09/15/2026

Chile needed more fruit to keep up with growing demand. So in 1998 it approved a European bumblebee, Bombus terrestris, for commercial pollination — first in greenhouses, then out in open fields.

Nearly three decades and 1.6 million colonies later, the B. terrestris has crossed the Andes into Argentina at a rate of about 124 miles a year, brought pathogens the native bees had never encountered, and helped push Patagonia's only endemic bumblebee (Bombus dahlbomii) toward the endangered list.

Researchers say the imports were never necessary because Chile has around 6,000 native pollinator species, and native bees pollinate blueberries better than the European ones.

Read the full story here: https://thefern.org/2026/09/the-unwilding-of-patagonias-pollinators/

Reporting by Jude Isabella. Photographs by Katrina Pyne. In partnership with bioGraphic and LA NACION

09/14/2026

Reporter Jude Isabella traveled to Patagonia in search of the biggest bumblebee in the world.

The giant Patagonian bumblebee Bombus dahlbomii is the region's only native bumblebee. Some estimates put its population decline at 90%.

What’s driving the decline is a bee considered the darling of the agricultural world, sitting in cardboard boxes in Chile's berry fields: A European bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) imported to pollinate the blueberries and raspberries headed for our grocery stores.

Jude's full story drops tomorrow on thefern.org 🐝

Reporting by Jude Isabella. Photographs by Katrina Pyne. In partnership with bioGraphic and LA NACION

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