CAST CEO Chris Boomsma hosted a members-only session Aug. 4 to brief the organization’s membership on the progress of a major strategic initiative that could define CAST’s role in U.S. agriculture for decades to come. The session, titled “The CAST Initiative: Where We Are and What’s Ahead,” is now available online.
Boomsma offered CAST members an overview of the work by the Strategic Advisory Council, a 24-member group representing leaders from agriculture, research, investment, and policy sectors. This council has been tasked with defining what a national-level institution for agricultural science and technology could look like in the United States.
Over the past year and a half, Boomsma and his team have conducted interviews with stakeholders from government, academia, nonprofits, and private industry. He said these discussions revealed that agriculture is facing structural changes due to geopolitical competition, commodity market pressures, underinvestment in science and technology, fragmented research efforts, and a lack of unified national leadership in agricultural science. “The challenge is not generating innovation,” Boomsma said. “The challenge is translating innovation into system-level outcomes.”
The Strategic Advisory Council recently met in Washington D.C., where they heard from House and Senate agriculture committees as well as representatives from the National Academy of Sciences. Their discussions produced design principles for a new institution intended to be influential but not directive; inclusive across sectors; focused on real-world impact; and built to advance in stages rather than all at once. Boomsma said, “We’re trying to find the need and respond to that.”
CAST has begun conducting a national listening tour with sessions already held at NC State University and others planned at the University of Arkansas. The organization plans further engagement with university leaders, business executives, scientific societies, and other stakeholder groups over coming months as it prepares recommendations for its Board of Directors ahead of its annual meeting in late October.
“We want to build something that stakeholders choose to use, trust, and align around,” Boomsma said. Updates will continue at cast-science.org as this initiative advances.
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