Starting this summer, Vermont farmers are some of the first in the nation to face major restrictions on neonicotinoids — a kind of pesticide widely used to treat corn and soy plants. In part, that’s because neonics are killing honeybees.

Quebec has had a similar law on the books for years. So we head north of the border to see what we can learn from our Canadian neighbors and answer this question from Curtis Mraz, of New Haven:

“What is Vermont doing to protect our pollinators?”

For a full transcript of this episode and photos from our reporting, check out our web post.

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. 

As always, our journalism is better when you’re a part of it:

Brave Little State is a production of Vermont Public and a proud member of the NPR Network.