Videos

CAST’s Chris Boomsma on peer review, public trust + protecting scientific discovery in agriculture

Nano-Yield's Clark Bell on maximizing fertilizer use, nanotechnology + doing more with that’s already in the tank

What happens when a health system stops treating food as advice and starts treating it as infrastructure?

On this episode of Agbioscience, host Eric Pfeiffer sits down with Joel Hungate of Hancock Health to unpack the Food Is Medicine campaign he's built as part of a broader strategic shift the system calls the "Infrastructure of Well-Being." Food Is Medicine has become a national conversation, but health systems implement it very differently — and Hungate walks through what it actually looks like at Hancock Health, and why the organization chose to build it rather than just talk about it.

The conversation starts on the medical fitness campus in Greenfield, where Hancock Health recently installed a 24-foot autonomous, climate-controlled hydroponic growing container in partnership with agtech startup Anu. Hungate explains why the garden went there rather than into a clinical setting, and why the produce is sequenced deliberately — first to participants in the clinical exercise program, then to employees and members — and what the system hopes to learn from that order.

From there, the discussion turns to the harder questions: how Hancock Health is measuring outcomes and how long before anyone can say a Food Is Medicine intervention paid off. With large multi-site evaluations showing produce prescriptions improve diet, food security and cardiometabolic markers, and the American Medical Association now affirming food is medicine, Hungate separates the evidence that drove the decision from what he's seeing locally. He also takes on the reimbursement question, as roughly 15 states provide or pursue produce prescriptions through Medicaid waivers, and explains where Food Is Medicine sits alongside Hancock Health's year-long weight management initiative — the program blending lifestyle medicine, clinical care, medical fitness and medication when appropriate that won recognition for Best Comprehensive Wellness Program.

The episode closes on scale and place: what a health system's role looks like in Hancock County's SR 9 Innovation Corridor, the long-term vision positioning the county at the intersection of agriculture, health and bioscience with proposals for an ag tech TIF district north of Greenfield, and what it would take for Hancock Health's Food Is Medicine work to reach beyond its own patient population over the next three to five years.

Episode Highlights

What the Food Is Medicine campaign is, what it consists of today, and why Hancock Health decided to build it inside the "Infrastructure of Well-Being" strategy

Why Hancock Health built Food Is Medicine rather than just talking about it — and how its approach differs from how other systems implement it

The 24-foot autonomous, climate-controlled hydroponic container installed with agtech startup Anu at the Wellness Center in Greenfield, and why the medical fitness campus rather than a clinical setting

The deliberate sequencing of that produce — clinical exercise program participants first, then employees and members — and what Hancock Health hopes to learn

How the system is measuring outcomes, what it's tracking, and how long before a Food Is Medicine intervention can be called a payoff

The national evidence base versus local observation: produce prescriptions improving diet, food security and cardiometabolic markers, the AMA's affirmation, and what's driving the decision in Hancock County

The reimbursement question as roughly 15 states provide or pursue produce prescriptions through Medicaid waivers — clinical service, community benefit, or something else

How Food Is Medicine sits alongside the award-winning year-long weight management initiative blending lifestyle medicine, clinical care, medical fitness and medication

What Anu brings that Hancock Health couldn't build internally, and how the partnership came together

A health system's role in the SR 9 Innovation Corridor and the proposed ag tech TIF district north of Greenfield

What it would mean to develop, test and scale ag-and-health innovation in your own county — and what that ecosystem should produce for health

Where this goes in three to five years, and what would have to be true to scale beyond Hancock Health's own patient population

What's ahead that has Joel most excited

World Food Championships' Mike McCloud on building Food Sport + a faster feedback loop across the value chain

Faegre Drinker’s Rachael Spiegel on food, agriculture, the law + why recalls continue to climb

CAST’s Chris Boomsma on peer review, public trust + protecting scientific discovery in agriculture

Nano-Yield's Clark Bell on maximizing fertilizer use, nanotechnology + doing more with that’s already in the tank

Joaquín Alarcón spent his career in industrial enzymes and chemical bio-products watching good green chemistry ideas die on the way to a plant. Catalyxx, the company he founded in 2017 and now leads as CEO, is built to avoid that fate. It takes plant-based alcohol — in the U.S., largely corn ethanol — and turns it into the same molecules the chemical industry has made from oil for a century. Same performance, same specifications, no reformulation required.

This week on Agbioscience, Joaquín walks Eric Pfeiffer through a decade of work on the innovation platform behind it, from a demo facility in Seville to the 120 million euro commercial plant now rising in Sines, Portugal — the first production of its kind at scale. Along the way: why the Consider Corn Challenge win in 2021 and years of Indiana Corn Marketing Council support for the GrenOl renewable fuel project matter, what Indiana’s corn and ethanol base could offer Catalyxx, and what still has to change in policy, infrastructure and capital markets before bio-based chemicals scale in the U.S. the way they are starting to in Europe,

Highlights include:

Plant alcohol, not petroleum: Catalyxx turns plant-based alcohol into the same molecules the chemical industry has made from oil for a century — what that means for agbioscience, and what drew Joaquín to the innovation platform for the last decade of his career.

Founding to first plant: Founded in 2017 and now building its first commercial plant — the moment he knew it would work, and what it actually took to get a first plant off the ground.

Why most green chemistry dies: Years in industrial enzymes and chemical bio-products taught him why a few green chemistry ideas reach a plant and most never do — and how Catalyxx was built differently on purpose.

No reformulation required: Most sustainable chemicals ask a manufacturer to alter a process, a specification, even a supply chain. Catalyxx’s product is identical to what they already buy — and that is the point.

Volatility as a business model: Working from ethanol, which in the U.S. largely means corn ethanol — building on a commodity that moves constantly, with policy behind it that moves too. How the business stays profitable through that volatility, and how much of the model depends on ethanol staying cheap.

The Indiana relationships: How the Consider Corn Challenge win in 2021 and the Indiana Corn Marketing Council’s multi-year backing for the GrenOl renewable fuel project started — and what that Indiana support has enabled.

Indiana as a plant site: Indiana is among the largest corn and ethanol producing states, with an active conversation about moving more of what it grows into higher-value products. What stands out about Indiana as a potential site for Catalyxx.

Seville to Sines: From a demo facility in Seville to a 120 million euro plant in Sines — the first commercial-scale production of its kind. What had to be proven at demo scale before anyone would commit capital, why Sines was the right location, and what remains between a signed project and commercial production.

The sequencing: U.S. and Brazilian plants follow the European one — the sequencing logic, and what has to be true before a U.S. plant makes sense.

The scaling bottleneck: The single biggest thing that has to change — policy, infrastructure, or capital markets — for bio-based chemicals to scale in the U.S. the way they are beginning to in Europe.

What Catalyxx becomes: Five years out: a licensor of technology, an operator of plants, or a chemical company in its own right — and what has him most excited about what’s ahead.

World Food Championships' Mike McCloud on building Food Sport + a faster feedback loop across the value chain

Faegre Drinker’s Rachael Spiegel on food, agriculture, the law + why recalls continue to climb

Halderman Farm Management’s Howard Halderman on how AI is transforming farm management

CAST’s Chris Boomsma on peer review, public trust + protecting scientific discovery in agriculture

Nano-Yield's Clark Bell on maximizing fertilizer use, nanotechnology + doing more with that’s already in the tank

The agbiosciences are being asked to answer harder questions faster than ever — and at the same time, public trust in institutions and expertise is thinning. This week we are joined by Chris Boomsma, CEO of the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), for a conversation about what it actually takes to produce science that farmers, researchers, companies and policymakers can all rely on. We dig into how CAST's peer-reviewed, expert-led process works and why that rigor matters when decisions carry real economic, environmental and food-system consequences. Chris also weighs in on the funding and political pressures reshaping academic research, the tension between the industry's need for speed and science's need for care and where misinformation is most likely to take hold. It's a candid look at how credible voices earn trust — and what organizations like CAST will have to do more boldly to keep it.

Highlights include:

What CAST actually is — the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology's mission and the convening role it plays across the agriculture ecosystem.

Where science is needed most — the biggest issues facing ag right now, and where credible, evidence-based information is most urgently missing.

Inside the process — what peer-reviewed, expert-led report development really looks like, and why the vetting is the point.

Why peer review matters in ag — the economic, environmental, and food-system stakes behind decisions made by farmers, researchers, companies, and policymakers.

Trust in a skeptical era — how CAST reaches audiences who don't automatically trust science or formal research bodies.

Rigor meets accessibility — balancing accuracy with usefulness for producers, industry leaders, and decision-makers.

A research sector in transition — how shifting funding models, political pressures, and new expectations for public impact are changing agricultural science.

Speed vs. care — whether a gap is opening between how fast the industry needs answers and how long careful science takes, and how CAST is responding.

Misinformation's soft spots — the ag topics most vulnerable to oversimplification, and where trusted scientific voices matter most.

The cost of moving too fast — the risk to agribusiness leaders, policymakers, and startups that skip peer-reviewed grounding.

What's next — what CAST and similar organizations must do differently — or more boldly — to protect scientific credibility and keep agriculture moving forward.