Episode 6 of CAST Pulse features two conversations that approach agricultural science from opposite ends of the spectrum — and arrive at similar conclusions about what science communication needs to accomplish.
Jeremy Jack: Farming, Technology, and the Case for a National Academy
Jeremy Jack is the CEO of Silent Shade Planting Company, one of the largest family-owned farming operations in the Mississippi Delta. His parents immigrated from Southern Ontario, Canada in the late 1970s, drawn by the land and the opportunity to build something lasting. Jeremy studied agricultural economics at Mississippi State University, spent time in Washington D.C. working on the 2008 Farm Bill, and returned to the farm — where he has been ever since.
Earlier this month, Jeremy attended the first in-person meeting of CAST’s Strategic Advisory Council as its newest member. He brought to that meeting something not always present in agricultural policy discussions: decades of direct experience working the land.
In this conversation, Jeremy talks about how precision agriculture transformed his operation — processes that once took five or six days can now be completed in minutes — and about what he hopes the Strategic Advisory Council can accomplish. He makes the case for a National Academy of Agriculture that could serve as a nonpartisan, trusted source of scientific information for lawmakers, independent of the political pressures that too often shape agricultural policy.
Suraksha Baral: Food Waste, Behavioral Economics, and Science That Leaves the Journal
Suraksha Baral grew up on a farm in Nepal. She watched her father lose produce to waste — rotten tomatoes, rotten potatoes — with no market to absorb it. That experience became the foundation of her research career.
Today, Suraksha is a Ph.D. candidate in Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on food waste and recycling behavior — specifically, what it actually takes to change how people act, not just what they know. She is the 2025 recipient of the CAST Science Communication Scholarship, which recognizes graduate students who combine rigorous research with the ability to communicate it clearly to audiences outside academia.
Her work includes a large-scale study on social norms and food waste involving thousands of participants in the United States and Germany. The finding: simple, well-timed messages produce meaningful reductions in food waste. Her goal is to close the gap between research and policy — designing strategies that change behavior at scale, not just in controlled settings.
Listen to Episode 6
Show Notes
