The week of June 10, Farm Journal is celebrating the next generation of American agriculture. Our goal is to encourage you to plan for the future and cultivate multigenerational success through the transfer of skills and knowledge. Think tomorrow, act today to align your asset, resource and financial legacy.
In the heart of the Arkansas delta, Hallie Shoffner has a legacy to uphold. As a sixth-generation farmer in a town incorporated by her ancestors, she’s spent the past five years working to sustain and grow her family’s farm business.
“Farming is more difficult now, especially for young farmers,” Shoffner says. “I want to leave my son a future that isn’t plagued by market volatility, climate change, inflation, health issues or pandemics.”
Shoffner took over SFR Seed, a 2,000-acre research operation located in Newport, Ark., in 2019. The business includes seed stock production for 20 varieties of specialty rice, pre-commercial soybean research and commercial grains. But coming back to the farm wasn’t always part of the plan.
“My parents were very intentional about making me leave the farm. They wanted me to experience other things, and so did I,” Shoffner says. “When I got my master’s degree, I tried a lot of different things and hated all of them. I don’t like sitting behind a desk. I want to see the fruits of my labor — quite literally.”
Shoffner spent years traveling the globe in search of what would fulfill her, eventually finding it in an unlikely place.
“I spent time in Peru in the Amazon jungle working for a nonprofit that spoke with women about health issues, domestic violence and childcare,” she says. “They had programs where they helped the women start farms, so I was able to visit all of them and help harvest their crops. That was my favorite thing I did.”
Looking back on that experience, Shoffner realizes it shouldn’t have been surprising her other career paths didn’t bring her joy. She belonged on the farm.
Hear Hallie on The Top Producer Podcast
Use Niches As A Springboard
Shoffner was handed the CEO baton from her mother, Wendy, and is now working to stay ahead of the game while making the operation her own. One strategy that’s allowed her to do both is diversification with specialty rice.
“There are not many specialty rice acres in the south, and we’re the only company in the entire world that maintains about seven of these lines,” Shoffner says.
With so many achievements as an entrepreneur and business manager in the short time following her return to the farm, Shoffner has been recognized with the 2024 Top Producer of the Year Next Gen Award, sponsored by Pioneer and Fendt. And as she continues to move the operation forward, her long-term dream is to move its focus into even more niche areas.
In Newport, Ark., Hallie Shoffner is focused on potential at her 2,000-acre operation, SFR Seed, a family business specializing in seed production and research. Shoffner is carrying on a mission her mother began in 1988. At the 2024 Top Producer Summit, Shoffner received the Next Gen Award, sponsored by Pioneer and Fendt.
“I think the future of farming, especially in the South, is in specialty crops. Right now, it’s hard to be profitable in commodities,” she says. “I like specialty rice because we get a premium on it, and I don’t have the same thing every year. But I love to grow weird things — I would love to try cow peas, and I really would like to try peanuts.”
One to face challenges head-on, Shoffner wants to build resiliency in her farm business.
“The way my parents farmed was that in the good years, you do what you can to put away money to preserve your equity and be prepared for the bad years,” Shoffner says. “But what happens when you have more bad years than not? When they become more frequent and you have more crop loss, or more market volatility due to changing weather patterns?”
Since Shoffner took over the operation, she says there has been some form of extreme weather event every year. From an abnormally wet spring delaying planting to a massive drought causing an emergency situation in the state to working fields in a heat index of 120°F.
“Farming changes so rapidly. You have to be able to adapt and you have to be flexible. You have to understand that the decision you made yesterday may be a completely different decision you make 12 months from now,” she says. “You have to be willing to change the way you look at things.”
It’s with those ever-changing conditions in mind she’s been working to implement as many climate-smart practices as possible while also balancing what’s practical.
“It’s great to help the environment, but it’s also great to help my bottom line by saving money,” she says. “There are not that many farmers left, and those of us still here are trying to do the right thing. Not just for the environment but for our own financial sustainability.”
Some of the practices SFR Seed has implemented include converting wells from diesel to electric power to save water, switching to conservation tillage, replacing a portion of fertilizer with chicken litter and cover cropping.
Trial And Error
Along her operation’s conservation journey, Shoffner has learned sustainability can’t be a one-size-fits-all solution.
“We do a lot of trialing before we adopt something, and I think conservation is all about trial and error for farmers,” Shoffner says. “Nothing has been easy to implement, and there are some fields where the conservation tillage is great, but I might have another field where I say reducing synthetic fertilizer is better. Maybe next year, using a drone to spray and save on herbicides and fuel will be my favorite.”
This is a reality Shoffner believes is important for other young producers to recognize.
“It’s about practical innovations,” she says. “You can implement some of these practices, but you don’t have to feel like you need 100% of them. Be true to your farm; they’re all different.”
As Shoffner has experienced her fair share of problems along this process, including a cover crop turned weed in one field, she has also realized how important it is for members of the ag industry to be more transparent with consumers about the challenges they’re up against.
| Hallie’s Favorite Things |
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On top of her work at SFR Seed, Shoffner recently launched a new company, Foodwise, that combines her passions for diversification, climate change and female farmers into one project. The mission of Foodwise is to market specialty rice varieties grown in the South by women and minority farmers to brands and ask them to do pilot programs for production. “There are huge brands that buy rice for pet food products, parboiled products or sell to restaurants. We know there are varieties grown here that can meet their needs,” Shoffner says. “We market our varieties to those brands and say, ‘If you want to diversify your sourcing, we can help.’” For the brands, the reward is twofold. The rice provides a potentially lower carbon footprint because it doesn’t need to be imported and helps meet diversity goals. “It’s climate friendly, it’s grown by diverse farmers, and it’s something consumers can feel good about buying,” Shoffner says. “We don’t have control over a lot of things, but we do have control over our ability to diversify and let food companies know the South is a viable source of specialty products.” |
Voice The Challenges
“I try to talk to as many consumers as I can about what it means to be a farmer in the face of climate change and in the face of market volatility, but I really like to talk about the practical application of conservation techniques,” she says. “There are advocates out there closing their ears to the true challenges of implementing conservation practices. They say, ‘You shouldn’t use Roundup, because it’s killing everything.’ Well, we should be using less Roundup, but here’s why that’s hard, here’s what we’re doing to reduce our usage.”
Over the years, Shoffner has also gotten involved with organizations such as AgLaunch, Presidential Scholars, and the Arkansas Food Bank to broaden her network and find more ways to serve as an advocate for agriculture and climate change.
The Next Generation
Shoffner says her passion for speaking up about her experience with a changing climate came partially from seeing her parents as active advocates in the ag industry growing up, partially from being opinionated and partially from anxiety.
“Being a young farmer, I started to have a lot more anxiety about the future when I came back to the farm,” she says. “As it’s leader, I have to think about how I’ll keep this afloat for another 30 to 40 years when I don’t even know how the industry will look 12 months from now.”
Words of wisdom from her dad, John, are something she can count on to put her feelings in check.
“My dad is always saying, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s not the end of the world.’ He’s right. It’s not,” Shoffner says. “We have a tall rice variety that will get blown over with the slightest wind at harvest. I remember looking out the window during a big storm saying, ‘It’s all going to fall over, it’ll be ruined.’ And he said, ‘If it falls over, you’ll deal with it. It won’t be the end of the world, though.’ And he was right.”
If given a magic wand, Shoffner says she would use it to be more aware of her stress levels and how much of it is self-imposed.
“I do think women struggle more with this because on top of being farmers, many of us are also mothers,” she says. “We do a lot of emotional work in the house, we’re more cognizant of interoffice communication and relationships, and then we also do a lot of the physical labor.”
But even with the mental toll it comes with, there’s still nothing she’d rather be than a young, female farmer.
“Millennial farmers are very innovative. We’re very willing to try new things — new, weird things. We’re motivated to not just change the way we farm but to change our economic systems,” Shoffner says. “And as a woman farmer, I’m part of a group with backbones made of steel like my mom’s.”
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