Kent Schescke, executive vice president for CAST, said the organization, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, was formed from a recommendation made from the National Academy of Sciences.

“The recommendation was that there needed to be this organization formed to help communicate the science and technology of food and agriculture to a nonscientific audience,” Schescke said.

Schescke said CAST’s mission is to “convene and coordinate networks of volunteers who come together to interpret, assemble and communicate credible science based information about food and agriculture to policy makers, media and the public.”

“I think we are really seen as a credible source for science,” Schescke said, adding CAST has been considered a well-kept secret. “The tagline we have created is we are your trusted source for science.”

Schescke said they often hear from congressional staff and others that the information they are receiving on such topics related to food and agriculture oftentimes comes with bias — as an attempt to be of influence.

“They are wanting to understand the real information, so often they will seek our information out. They trust that it is free of bias. It is free of influence. We are not lobbying them; we are just saying this is what the science is and they value that and we want to be that trusted source for science in the midst of misinformation that is going on — particularly around some of the technologies,” he said.

CAST’s focus has been to inform, not influence.

“We are nonpartisan,” he said. “Our job is to really be there to say what does this science say around some of these topics, and I think we have been very fortunate over the years to come out with very timely papers that have helped to inform not only the general public, but to inform policy makers as they made laws or rules regarding science and technology — particularly around food and ag.”

Schescke said the work they do isn’t necessarily targeted for farmers.

“It is in support of farmers. We are helping the broader public understand the science, technology and innovation that is so important to our ability to produce food and fiber,” he said.

Through the years, CAST started out writing shorter papers. Schescke said that eventually grew into much larger papers and even books. However, they could be going back to how it all started.

“I think we are probably coming back to what our real roots are,” he said. “We are trying to help bridge this gap of putting what the scientists know and what the general public knows. Our emphasis has been going away from those lengthier publications to shorter, more concise publications that we can turn around faster and we can deliver to a broader audience.”

Topics

Schescke said CAST produces papers on a range of technologies from animal agriculture to plant agriculture to things about food.

“Last year, one paper focused on the importance of food animal veterinarians and the role they play and the whole food safety/food security piece of that,” he said. “We also did a paper on producing food from culture cell tissue — lab-grown meat. We delivered at the World Food Prize on biofortification and how some of the advanced breeding technologies help us to biofortify and provide missing nutrients to diets in lots of different countries.”

CAST completes their work through a small staff and a network of volunteers.

“We don’t pay anyone to write anything. All of the people who write our publications all volunteer their time and expertise. What we do is the volunteer management and coordination of the process, and I think that is working very well,” Schescke said.

According to Schescke volunteer writers include scientists, lawyers and economists. CAST has 18 university members; 25 scientific societies and close to 1,000 individuals that help to support the work they do.

There has been a lot of adjusting throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and CAST was not immune.

“We had to do some major pivoting just to stay relevant and viable,” Schescke said. “We would produce papers, myself and a taskforce chair would do a series of briefings on Capitol Hill using House Ag, Senate Ag committees and one of our member organization offices somewhere. With COVID-19 and the travel situation, we couldn’t do that.”

Prior to the pandemic, Schescke said the staff at CAST had been exploring the idea of using webinars as a way to reach a wider audience.

“When the pandemic hit, we immediately pivoted to that. This year, we rolled out 10 publications and we did each of them through webinar presentations. We were garnering larger audiences in one webinar than we were doing through three independent briefings out in D.C.,” he said. “Not sure we were reaching the same people, but we were reaching a much broader audience.”

Where is CAST headed into 2021 and beyond?

Schescke said going forward, CAST is going to continue to focus on putting out good information, but also continue to look at what different forms that content may be in.

“Can we use some of the available technologies to make short videos? We have become increasingly more of a larger presence in social media today using Facebook and Linkedin and other means to help break down the science into more fine bits of information,” he said. “We will continue to do more of that.”

Schescke said they have a new strategic plan that focuses on three things:

• Content

“That is where our paper’s fit,” he said. “We want to continue to put out credible science based information about food and agriculture.”

The content may take on new forms in how it looks and how it gets delivered.

• Focusing on partnerships

“We are a small organization,” he said. “We know we need to partner with organizations that might do a good job at reaching the public or consumers needing a good source of information. How might we partner up with those organizations to be more effective at reaching these target audiences?”

• Impact

“How do we measure and quantify qualitative and quantitative perspective? The impact we are having with our publications,” Schescke said.

Help

Schescke said CAST is always looking for input and good ideas and there is an area on their website at cast-science.org to submit them.