FERN launches Buzzkill, a podcast exploring the pollinator crisis and threats to the food system

The Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN) today announced Buzzkill, a new podcast series exploring the global pollinator crisis beginning Tuesday, January 28. A trailer for the six-part weekly series hosted by award-winning journalist Teresa Cotsirilos is available now.

The series is available free on-demand on all major podcast listening platforms through public media organization PRX’s podcast distribution platform, Dovetail.

Most of the food crops humans grow depend on pollinators — bees, butterflies, bats, birds, and more. Industrial agriculture and modern land management practices are putting the survival of these crucial animals in jeopardy. Buzzkill asks why we raise food this way and what we can do to change things for the better.

“Working on this show has been endlessly interesting,” says Buzzkill host Teresa Cotsirilos. “A considerable percentage of the food we eat depends on a five-eyed, two-stomached, sentient insect that communicates in waggle dances — you may know them as bees — and we’re killing them en masse with agrochemicals! It’s all pretty fascinating.”

The first episode dives into the “save the bees” phenomenon and if amateur beekeepers are doing more harm than good. Future episodes investigate the impact of toxic agro-chemicals on pollinators in Nebraska, and how a Native American tribe is pushing back against colonialism in farming. We travel to Mexico to learn how bats might protect the future of tequila, cover the battle over pollinator-friendly homes in Maryland, and in Central California give a glimpse of a future world without pollinators.

“FERN’s mission is to produce powerful stories about the food system, and the collapse of pollinator populations is so important,” says Theodore Ross, FERN’s editor-in-chief and a Buzzkill executive producer. “Buzzkill delivers that, and an explanation for why a world without pollinators means, among other things, a world without chocolate.”

The Buzzkill team includes acclaimed journalists, writers, and producers Theodore Ross, Brent Cunningham, and Bridget Huber of FERN, Adizah Eghan (VICE News Reports), Alyssa Jeong Perry (Radiolab), Dan Charles (NPR), Eve Abrams (Unprisoned), Elliott Woods (Third Squad), and Rowan Jacobsen (A Geography of Oysters).

Buzzkill will be available for free on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Pocket Casts, and Overcast.