Brave Little State is Vermont Public’s listener-powered journalism podcast. Every episode begins with a question submitted by our audience.
Today, we answer this question from Curtis Mraz, of New Haven:
“What is Vermont doing to protect our pollinators?”
Curtis’s question takes us to the Eastern Townships of Quebec, where we speak with a farmer, beekeeper and researcher about the rollout of Quebec’s law.
Note: Our show is made for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript. Transcripts are generated using a combination of robots and human transcribers, and they may contain errors.
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Sabine Poux: Ever since he was old enough to walk, Curtis Mraz was sent into his family’s bee yards to work.
Curtis Mraz: It was like my summer job, was go live with grandma and grandpa in Vermont and work the bees. I didn't love getting stung but I loved eating comb honey in the shade.
Sabine Poux: Curtis is a fourth-generation honeybee farmer in Middlebury, at Champlain Valley Apiaries. And today — just a few weeks before the honey extraction season shifts into high gear — we’re driving to one of his bee yards in Weybridge.
Curtis Mraz: You don’t have any service here, unfortunately.
Sabine Poux: That’s great.
Curtis Mraz: This is like, my favorite bee yard for that reason.
Sabine Poux: No cell service, to be sure — but lots and lots and lots of corn.
Sabine Poux: You’re right across the street from a cornfield.
Curtis Mraz: Oh yeah. And this is not uncommon. I mean, almost every one of our bee yards is. It’s Addison County, so there’s no way you can get away from it.
Sabine Poux: The reason Curtis would want to get away from these fields is all about the pesticides the corn is sprayed with. Almost all of the corn in the U.S., including here in Vermont, is treated with a certain class of insecticide called neonicotinoids — or neonics, for short.
Neonics are neurotoxins and farmers use them to get rid of insects that could destroy their crop. Vermont dairy farmers use corn from seeds that have been treated with neonics to feed their cows. Fruit growers will often spray their plants with neonics to ward off maggots.
But neonics also kill honey bees. Which beekeepers like Curtis say is making their job a lot harder.
Curtis Mraz: We typically run about 1,000 colonies. But this spring, we were down, you know, way, way, way low numbers ,like historic lows, and we had historically high losses.
Sabine Poux: Beekeepers around the state — and around the country — are reporting high bee colony losses like Curtis is.
Actually, beekeepers and the state’s agency of agriculture are at odds over this. The state says Vermont’s bee colonies are on the up; but beekeepers say the state’s data is misleading, and that they are still contending with really high losses and mounting pressures on their hives.
That’s why Curtis submitted his winning question to Brave Little State: What is Vermont doing to protect pollinators?
And, it’s why in 2024, Vermont passed a law banning neonics. It's phasing them out in two parts: First, with a ban on sprays and other outdoor uses, which came into effect just a month before this episode aired. And two, a ban on neonicotinoid-treated seeds. That doesn’t go into effect until 2029.
The long runway is meant to help with the transition for farmers, since they’re the ones who will be making the adjustments to their practices.
And farmers raised some key concerns as lawmakers were hashing out the details last year — for example, that they’ll have trouble finding untreated seeds since Vermont represents such a small portion of the national corn market. Vermont Governor Phil Scott called the law “anti-farmer.”
News anchor: In his veto letter, Scott noted that nearly all corn grown in the U.S. is treated with neonics, and that banning this corn from being grown or used in Vermont could impact the dairy industry.
Sabine Poux: Even now that the law has passed, the conversation isn't over. There are still details to figure out about how the law will be rolled out — how exemptions will be granted and how the seed markets will adjust.
Vermont is just the second state to pass a law like this, behind New York, and they’re on the same rollout timeline we are.
But we don’t have to fly totally blind. Because there are already farmers and beekeepers on the other side of this transition in other places — like in the E.U. and in parts of Canada.
So we asked Curtis, our beekeeper-slash-question-asker: What questions do you have for farmers and beekeepers on the other side of these changes?
To the farmers:
Curtis Mraz: I mean, I'd like to know, like, is, is your seed actually cheaper, or is it more expensive to buy it untreated?
Sabine Poux: He also wants to know if they’re seeing changes in crop yield. Is not using insecticides impacting their bottom line?
And when it comes to beekeepers in other places:
Curtis Mraz: What are the obstacles that they're facing now?
Sabine Poux: After the break, BLS takes Curtis’s questions on a road trip.
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The farmer
Sabine Poux: It’s a classically Vermont day in late July. Everything smells a little like manure and the farm fields seem to stretch out with a particular endlessness. We’re stuck behind a tractor that’s moving at a snail’s pace in the one-lane road.
Except — this isn’t Vermont. All the signs are in French. We’re actually about 30 minutes north of the border, in Quebec.
Sabine Poux: So, we are out here in the Eastern Townships. How would you describe the Eastern Townships?
Ainslie MacLellan: The Eastern Townships are beautiful. You should definitely visit them if you get a chance.
Sabine Poux: This is Ainslie MacLellan. She’s a public radio reporter in Canada and makes a podcast that answers listener-submitted questions about Montreal. Genius concept, by the way.
Ainslie’s done a lot of reporting here, in the Eastern Townships, and she’s showing us around. She says this region is known for its agriculture. There’s a lot of wine and dairy production here.
Ainslie MacLellan: Some great cheeses from here, as well. And, of course, you also have producers who are growing corn and growing soybeans and all sorts of other things, as well.
Sabine Poux: Corn and soybeans — some of the main culprits when it comes to neonic-treated plants in Vermont. And it used to be true here in the Eastern Townships too — until scientists in Quebec started sounding the alarm bells.
Ainslie MacLellan: Yeah, I believe that it had, it was something that was talked about from maybe even as early on as, you know, the 2010s.
Sabine Poux: Talked about — and fought over. In Quebec, this was all a bit, uh, dramatique.
News anchor: Il y a une crise dans le milieu de la recherche sur les pesticides au Québec…
Sabine Poux: Researchers were looking into neonics and finding that not only were they hurting bees here, but also that they didn’t seem to have much of an impact on crop yield — data that undermined the idea that those pesticides are important for farmers to use.
And the grain and pesticides industries viewed that research as a threat. Researchers say they pressured them to stop working. And not long after…
News anchor: He was fired in January after providing information to Radio Canada about the influence of private industry.
Sabine Poux: The Quebec government even fired a scientist for sounding the alarm about private seed companies meddling in publicly-funded research.
That scientist was later rehired. And the researchers were able to publish their work. In 2018, Quebec passed a ban on neonics.
Farmers were worried that the change would be a headache. Like Angus MacKinnon.
Angus MacKinnon: Well, all our seeds has this, has that product on it.
Sabine Poux: Angus is a seventh-generation farmer in Coaticook, near the Vermont-Quebec border. Here he is talking to the CBC in 2018, the year the rules came into effect.
Angus MacKinnon: And we will adjust. I know that it will add another level of bureaucracy to our work and we are already cumbersomely overweighed with paperwork in our daily lives, but it's something that we're going to have to adjust to.
Angus MacKinnon: I didn't know what to expect when they talked about restricting insecticide on the seed, because we'd had it for so many years.
Sabine Poux: This is Angus speaking to us today, in 2025. BLS intern Lucia McCallum and I visited Angus’s family farm up in Quebec. We were joined by Ainslie, the CBC reporter who’s been showing us around.
Ainslie MacLellan: The reason why we're here talking to you is because you were speaking with one of our shows — what concerns did you have about this at the time? What did you fear might happen?
Angus MacKinnon: Well, it's the fear of the unknown. Because we've been told for so many years, you need insecticide and fungicide on your seed in order to have good germination and good start on your corn. So I'd been conditioned over 20 years — we need that. So my concern was, well, if we take it out, what's going to happen?
Sabine Poux: Angus farms with his brother, and one day, one of his four daughters will take over here. He grows soya and alfalfa and a lot of corn. He’ll use most of this to feed his animals. The remainder will be sold as surplus.
Sabine Poux: It’s taller than us!
Angus MacKinnon: Yes, it is.
Sabine Poux: This corn field is full of stalks that reach over our heads. The corn’s doing great in this warm, hot weather.
Sabine Poux: Is this an insecticide or non-insecticide seed year?
Angus MacKinnon: Oh, I'd have to look up them in my books there. I couldn't tell you offhand.
Sabine Poux: Neonics aren’t the only insecticide farmers use. And since 2018, when Quebec banned neonics and Angus did that interview with the CBC, he’s done some experimenting with other chemicals, ones that hadn’t been made illegal yet. And he says he can’t really tell the difference between years when he treats his seeds and years when he doesn’t.
Angus MacKinnon: I've seen no negative effects of the non-use of insecticides on my seed ,in general.
Sabine Poux: By the way, a few days after we spoke with Angus in Coaticook, the Quebec government actually expanded its restrictions to include all insecticides, not just neonics.
As for the answers to Curtis’s questions. Here’s what Angus has to say:
One, is your seed cheaper or more expensive?
Angus says his is actually cheaper: about $20 cheaper, per bag (though that doesn’t make a huge difference when he’s buying at scale).
Two, are there real crop yield differences?
Again, Angus says no, at least not yet. That’s backed by that research that was suppressed in Quebec, which showed that neonics are only necessary in about 5% of cases when it comes to corn and soy farms.
But an important caveat for Angus is that it’s still early.
Angus MacKinnon: So the effect might not be seen right now or in five years, but it might be 10 years, maybe we'll having to be having a different conversation in 10 years.
Sabine Poux: And that data doesn’t extrapolate so neatly onto farms in Vermont, which deal with different and at-times riskier conditions in the field, and which have different needs for the corn they do produce. Researchers at the University of Vermont Extension are doing some Vermont-specific seed trials now.
Sabine Poux: What would you say to Vermont farmers about this transition that's coming up?
Angus MacKinnon: I would say, accept it, be responsible. Look forward, not back. We have a responsibility towards the environment, just like everyone else, and we have a role to play.
Sabine Poux: Before we go, Angus has a question of his own. There’s one factor in all this that he says loomed really large at the beginning of the neonics conversation in Quebec, but that he hasn’t heard about in years: the bees.
Angus MacKinnon: Nobody talks about that anymore. You should, you should be going and seeing a bee producer to include in this and say, ‘Have you seen any increase or decrease, improvement or negative effects in the last few years?’
Sabine Poux: That’s the plan.
Ainslie MacLellan: It's on the list.
Angus MacKinnon: Oh, it's on the list. (laughter) Oh, good.
The beekeeper
Sabine Poux: Vermonters will be familiar with the massive Lake Memphremagog from its southern end near Newport.
Well, on the northern end, in Quebec, there’s a town called Magog. It’s not far from Angus’s farm.
And today, the air is hazy with smoke from wildfires. Beekeeper Nico Coallier says the smoke makes a difference for his bees.
Nico Coallier: I've noticed that every day I go after a bad air quality sequence, they're very quiet. They don't fly as much.
Sabine Poux: Nico has been a beekeeper in Quebec for nine years and has been selling his honey for four. He lives near Sherbrooke and has hives all over the Eastern Townships. We’re here at one of them, tucked behind a grove of trees up a dirt road.
Nico’s not dressed like you might expect a beekeeper to be dressed, in one of those big, white, impenetrable suits. Rather, he’s in a t-shirt and shorts, aviators, and a pair of Crocs.
Nico Coallier: It's my beekeeper suit.
Sabine Poux: Yeah, there you go.
Nico Coallier: Cause I don’t dress up too much, because my bees are quite nice, so, yeah.
Sabine Poux: When he’s not keeping very nice bees, Nico also runs a data company. It's called Nectar. And it's a software that allows beekeepers to track their hives to see what’s working and what’s not.
Nico Coallier: With Nectar, we track currently about 300,000 colonies. So that’s about 10% of the hive in North America. And we’re still growing.
Sabine Poux: And he says what he’s found from monitoring hives and talking to beekeepers in Quebec has not been encouraging.
Nico Coallier: I think it’s gotten worse in the last few years. So it's hard to, it's hard to know if it's because like— of what it is, like, what's, what's the driver of it right now.
Sabine Poux: On the whole, honeybee health in Quebec is still trending down. Nico says that could be due to a lot of factors — pressures from things like climate change and increases in disease.
But he also says it could be at least partially due to the fact that neonics aren’t totally out of the picture.
Nico Coallier: Yeah, so I'll try to be not too pessimistic about the law, because the thing is that they left a big back door to it.
Sabine Poux: Nico struggles with one part of the law that he sees as a sort of loophole. Farmers can still use neonics if they get a prescription from an agronomist, or crop scientist — who sometimes have ties to the pesticide industry.
Now, it’s hard to find information on just how often farmers are actually asking for — and getting — those exemptions. The use of seeds treated with neonics has dropped precipitously in Quebec, according to the local government. So there probably aren’t a ton of those exemptions being handed out there.
But exemptions for neonic sprays seem more common. Sales for at least one type of spray have remained steady since the ban went into effect.
By the way, Vermont is putting together its own exemption process. Farmers will have to go to the agency of ag for permission to use neonics, and they’ll have to show that they’re at risk of losing a lot of their crop without it.
Given all of this, Nico is a little disillusioned about hashing this out at the government level. He says the real change happens on a smaller scale.
Nico Coallier: That's the key, like, discussion, discussion, collaboration. Talk with your farmers. In my philosophy, I think, like, stronger collaboration between the beekeeper and the farmer has more impact than legislation, because legislation, sadly, is often— there's an element where they need to protect the economy.
Sabine Poux: His other advice: Make sure neonics are banned completely.
Nico Coallier: I just think they should be banned. Like, I don’t think we should allow any exemption because there is no need for it.
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The researcher
Sabine Poux: We’re back at home: Me, back in Vermont, and Ainslie, back in Montreal.
But we have one last person to talk to about how things are going. I hop back on the line with Ainslie from our respective studios. And she brought someone along.
Ainslie MacLellan: And we have Geneviève here too.
Geneviève Labrie: Hey, hello.
Sabine: Hello! Great to meet you. I’m Sabine.
Sabine Poux: Geneviève Labrie is one of the scientists who sort of blew the lid off this whole thing in Quebec. Remember the research that was suppressed in the 2010s, research that showed how neonics weren’t all that effective in improving crop yield? Well, Geneviève was one of the people working on that research. And she says it was controversial. People would leave the room when she was presenting it.
Geneviève Labrie: We were five out of seven researchers that left in 2017 because of a lot of pressure, because it was not useful for the producers that researchers published the scientific paper. In fact, they wanted to stop the publication of my paper on neonics. And so I left.
I was really, really sad about that because I was for sure that nobody would publish those results.
Sabine Poux: Eventually, Geneviève did get her results published. Now, she’s working with producers on finding other ways to prevent insect infestations — like increasing biodiversity in their fields.
Ainslie and I are talking to Geneviève because we’re having a hard time reconciling some of these ideas we heard in Quebec — that this law was passed to help honeybees, but that the honeybees are still struggling, maybe even more so than they were before the law was passed.
Like Nico, Geneviève says there are just a lot of other factors at play.
Geneviève Labrie: It's not surprising, because there's a lot of— there was an increase in the disease in bees in the last years.
Sabine Poux: But she’s remaining positive. Because even though the overall numbers don’t look good for the honeybees, she says the restrictions on neonics have had some impact.
Quebec isn't seeing so many bees die during corn and soybean planting seasons, like it did before the restrictions. Also, the little recent data we do have about how pesticides are affecting honeybees — it shows that they are still dying from other pesticides, just not neonics, anymore.
Geneviève Labrie: For sure, for the beekeepers in Vermont , there will be, uh, a certain amount of of good positive impact on bees. But they have to be aware that there is the other pesticide that will be used in the coating.
Sabine Poux: Genevieve also says the ban in Quebec is not just about the bees. There have been huge decreases of neonics in the waterways, which she says benefits all sorts of insects — and all of us.
Geneviève Labrie: For neonics, also, there was a lot of research that demonstrates that there is impacts on mammals and probably humans, too. And at the beginning, we were working on bees, but after that, we were knowing that there is some other huge impact on ecosystem. But it's much more appealing to talk about bees.
Ainslie MacLellan: So in a way, it's because we were talk— like the media, we were talking more about bees.
Geneviève Labrie: Yep.
Ainslie MacLellan: But there were other things that were problems.
Geneviève Labrie: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And much more, I think, than than the bees.
Curtis Mraz: My grandfather has always said, like, you do not need to explain the importance of a pollinator to a farmer. They understand it intuitively.
Sabine Poux: I’m in the car with Curtis Mraz, again. He’s getting ready for the busy honey season, and keeping an eye on the final rules making their way through the state’s comment process.
Sabine Poux: Do you think there's a way to go about implementing this law that would make a really big difference for people like you?
Curtis Mraz: Yeah. I think if, like, farmers really get behind and see the science and understand it and are supportive of it, that's when it's going to make the biggest change. We need to have that relationship and, like, build that care and that trust that says, like, you know, we're not here to hurt you. We're in this together, and let's make Vermont safer and cleaner and grow better food together.
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Credits
This episode was reported by Sabine Poux. Editing and production from the rest of the BLS team: Burgess Brown and Josh Crane. Additional support from Ainslie McClellan, journalist at CBC Montreal and the host of a podcast called This is Montreal. Our intern is Lucia McCallum. Angela Evancie is our Executive Producer. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.
Special thanks to Abagael Giles, Howard Weiss-Tisman, Andrea Laurion, Laurie Kigonya, Todd Mallory, Seth Bedard, Noah Villamarin-Cutter, Valérie Fournier and Steve Dwinell.
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Brave Little State is a production of Vermont Public and a proud member of the NPR Network.
