A monthly snapshot of CAST’s communications performance across social media, web traffic, membership, publications, earned media, and YouTube.
How CAST’s science reaches people: through our publications, website, social media, videos and webinars, news coverage, and the members and experts who make CAST’s work possible.
Data from August 1, 2026, to date. Each section names its exact period. Last updated October 29, 2026.
Highlights
Membership (GrowthZone): dashboard Nov 3, 2026 · Contributions (Notion): Jan 1 – Oct 29, 2026
CAST has 854 active members, and 284 new members have joined since January 1.
In 2026, 56 people made 44 contributions to CAST programs: webinars, essays, podcast episodes, awards and more.
From the GrowthZone Membership Report export of Oct 29 (657 active memberships), which covers fewer members than the totals above.
From the same Oct 29 report export. The March jump is 173 Student Explorer enrollments.
Publications site (OJS): Jul 31 – Oct 28, 2026 · Pipeline: Publications Tracker, Oct 29, 2026
CAST publications were viewed 83,105 times on the publications site, and readers opened the full paper (PDF) 12,573 times.
The most-read publication was “AI in Agriculture: Opportunities, Challenges, and Recommendations”, with 1,568 views.
16 new publications are in development, and 2 have been published from the current tracker.
Hover a bar for the exact number.
Views by visitor country, top 10.
Top 10 by total views.
| Publication | Published | Views |
|---|---|---|
| AI in Agriculture: Opportunities, Challenges, and Recommendations | 2025-03-31 | 1,568 |
| Diversifying the Corn Belt: Policy Pathways for a Resilient Agricultural Future | 2026-04-14 | 1,365 |
| AI in Agriculture: Transforming the Food System from Data to Decisions to Action | 2026-09-08 | 1,190 |
| Precision Irrigation Management | 2025-11-04 | 1,091 |
| Integrated Management of Fire-Adapted Invasive Plants That Change Wildfire Regimes | 2026-05-04 | 1,052 |
| Impacts on Human Health and Safety of Naturally Occurring and Supplemental Hormones in Food Animals | 2020-07-27 | 973 |
| The Contributions of Pesticides to Pest Management in Meeting the Global Need for Food Production by 2050 | 2014-11-25 | 960 |
| Mycotoxins: Risks in Plant, Animal, and Human Systems | 2003-01-15 | 952 |
| Impact of Recruitment and Retention of Food Animal Veterinarians on the U.S. Food Supply | 2020-04-06 | 827 |
| Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on Food and Agricultural Markets | 2020-06-29 | 808 |
Active entries in the CAST Publications Tracker.
Recruiting task force: BioSecurity, El Niño, Feral Pigs, Food Waste and Composting, Lessons Learned from HPAI, Microplastics in Agriculture, Spray Drift Reduction, Ultra-Processed Foods
Drafting: Genome-Edited Livestock, Genome-Edited Microbes, Irradiated Foods, Maximum Residue Levels, mRNA Vaccines in Livestock, Surfactants in Agriculture
Reviewing: Sustainable Intensification
Layout: Harmful Algal Bloom
Published: AI in Agriculture Policy Brief, PFAS in Farms and Food
cast-science.org (Google Analytics 4): Jul 31 – Oct 29, 2026
cast-science.org received 18,399 visits and 24,527 page views.
Direct traffic was the largest source of visits (70.7%), and search engines brought 18.6%.
After the homepage, the most-viewed page was /2026-cast-annual-meeting/, with 1,233 views.
Visits by channel.
Top 10 pages by views.
| Page | Views |
|---|---|
| Homepage (/) | 4,515 |
| /2026-cast-annual-meeting/ | 1,233 |
| /publications/ | 1,001 |
| /publication/ai-in-agriculture-transforming-the-food-system-from-data-to-decisions-to-action/ | 970 |
| /the-future-of-american-agriculture/ | 969 |
| /borlaug-cast-communication-award/ | 624 |
| /membership/ | 501 |
| /about/ | 388 |
| /publication/ai-in-agriculture-opportunities-challenges-and-recommendations/ | 377 |
| /2026-bcca/ | 368 |
YouTube (CAST Studio channel): Jul 31 – Oct 29, 2026 · Webinars (StreamYard): 8 sessions, Sep 14 – Oct 21, 2026
CAST videos on YouTube were watched 4,315 times, adding up to 322 hours of viewing.
Eight webinars drew 2,211 registrations, and 913 people joined live (41.3% of registrants).
All videos on the channel.
Views by traffic source, top 8.
Top 8 by views in the period.
| Video | Published | Views |
|---|---|---|
| Alex Thomasson on AI in Agriculture: What the Science Shows and Why Policy Matters | Sep 8, 2026 | 1,017 |
| Webinar “Gene Editing in In Vitro and In Vivo Systems: Tools, Delivery, and Applications” | Oct 20, 2026 | 434 |
| AI in Agriculture: Transforming the Food System from Data to Decisions to Action | CAST Webinar | Sep 14, 2026 | 242 |
| Webinar “Research and Innovation: Accelerating the Path from Discovery to Impact” | Oct 8, 2026 | 215 |
| Webinar "Investment and Competitiveness: Aligning Capital with Agricultural Priorities" | Sep 30, 2026 | 146 |
| Webinar – Can AI Agents Use Our Agricultural Research? A FAIR4AG² Roadmap for Agent-Ready Science | Sep 22, 2026 | 145 |
| What Happens to Food Prices If These Shocks Last Another Year? | Cast Pulse Podcast | Aug 2, 2026 | 113 |
| The Food Price Story Nobody Is Covering Right Now | Cast Pulse Podcast | Jun 28, 2026 | 103 |
Research and Innovation was also streamed on YouTube; its “joined live” number adds the 113 YouTube views on the stream day (Oct 7) to StreamYard’s count. YouTube counts views, not unique people.
| Date | Session | Registered | Joined live |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 21 | Trust and Leadership: Building Confidence in Food and Agriculture | 169 | 69 |
| Oct 20 | Gene Editing in In Vitro and In Vivo Systems: Tools, Delivery, and Applications | 704 | 307 |
| Oct 16 | PFAS in Agriculture: Science, Uncertainty, and Risk Communication (paper release) | 256 | 104 |
| Oct 14 | Resilience and Security: Building the Capacity to Thrive in a Changing World | 128 | 47 |
| Oct 7 | Research and Innovation: Accelerating the Path from Discovery to Impact | 165 | 117 |
| Sep 30 | Investment and Competitiveness: Aligning Capital with Agricultural Priorities | 106 | 43 |
| Sep 22 | Can AI Agents Use Our Agricultural Research? A FAIR4AG² Roadmap for Agent-Ready Science | 210 | 57 |
| Sep 14 | AI in Agriculture: Transforming the Food System from Data to Decisions to Action | 473 | 169 |
Muck Rack media monitoring: mentions since Jul 31, 2026 · Monthly chart: Jan – Oct 2026
CAST was mentioned 134 times by 91 media outlets, and 78.4% of that coverage was positive.
The outlets that covered CAST together reach an estimated 233.8M monthly visitors. That is the outlets’ total traffic, not the number of people who read the stories.
October runs to Oct 29.
Mentions per outlet since Jul 31, top 10.
Posts published through Buffer: Jan 1 – Oct 29, 2026 · Facebook is not included
CAST published 515 posts on LinkedIn, Instagram and X in 2026, reaching 60,380 people on LinkedIn and Instagram.
On LinkedIn, 6.32% of people who saw a post interacted with it, compared with 3.95% on Instagram and 2.45% on X.
Sources: CAST publications site (OJS), Google Analytics 4, Buffer, YouTube Studio, StreamYard, Muck Rack, GrowthZone and Notion. Figures are a snapshot and are updated monthly.
