2024 Top Producer Next Gen Award Winner: Finding Opportunities Between the Rows

The work never stops, even if the machines do. 

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. 

“She trained me in how to increase pure seed stock of soybeans and rice, and it's been a journey of me learning what she did, and then adopting new practices in the field, particularly in terms of rice work,” says Hallie Shoffner, Top Producer of the Year Next Gen Award winner, sponsored by Pioneer and Fendt. 

It is somewhat of a new practice for the operation, but they now grow and maintain about 20 different rice varieties in partnership with USDA.

“We've been very lucky to have them helping us out in the field, so that we can build our own rice purity program,” Shoffner says.

Shoffner was raised in these fields and spent her childhood between the rows. 

“When I was little, my mom gave me an option. She said, ‘You can go to church with your grandmother, or you can go scout cotton with your dad,’” Shoffner says. “And that, as a kid, that's an easy choice, right? Because he would take me to McDonald's, and we'd go, which he still does today. We'd stop, and he'd say, ‘Go pick me 100 squares.’ And so we'd go out, we’d pick them, bring them back to the tailgate, open them up, look for bugs, and those are some of my best memories with my dad.” 

After college, encouraged to get out of ag, Shoffner lived all over the world: from Nashville to India, to Seattle, to Arkansas, then on to Peru and Spain.

“I tried a lot of different things,” Shoffner says. “I tried grant writing, I tried nonprofit work, I tried marketing, and I really didn't find anywhere where I fit in.”

But agriculture was calling.

“My dad needed to retire because he got his dementia diagnosis,” Shoffner says. “And they said, you can come back if you want. If you don't, we'll just shut it down. And I thought no, please don't do that.” 

Working and training with her mother, in 2019 Shoffner took the lead as CEO and continues to focus on growing the business, searching for opportunities in specialty crops and value-added production. 

“In the Delta, we're so focused on commodities, we're so focused on volume that we kind of lose perspective on the specialty work,” Shoffner says. “And there is a push now, knowing that the Delta has water, and places like California do not, there's going to be a big push for specialty work here in the south.”

Shoffner is also focusing her energy on sustainability. 

“I've seen the pressures that climate change puts on farmers, we have had either income or crop loss due to extreme weather events that are becoming consistently more inconsistent,” she says.

It's a message and a call to action she is passionate about sharing.

“Farmers are doing their part to combat the 10% carbon emissions that we are contributing to greenhouse gases,” Shoffner says. “We need support from other industries. If we're making the investments to go to no-till, if we're making the investments in technology that we need to become more environmentally sustainable, other industries need to do so as well.”
This includes building a future together that makes the most of modern gene editing tools and technology. 

“We can use technology to create plants that are hardier in the face of climate change, that yield better, that are disease resistant,” she says. “I think that's the future, and we are going to become involved in a big way. 

Shoffner takes this cause seriously because she has already reaped benefits from the past.

“I'm extremely privileged; I come from a long history of farming,” Shoffner says. “I'm a sixth-generation farmer. I will inherit land that's been in our family for over 100 years. A path has been paved for me; it's my responsibility to do the best with it that I can.” 

It's a mission she learned from the days in the field with her father and from watching her mother, the scientist. 

“I watched her walk confidently into every room and speak her mind; she was the expert,” Shoffner says. “And I knew that I could do anything because I saw her do anything.”

Shoffner pours confidence and precision into every day as she works to carry on a legacy of innovation.

“I'm proud to be a farmer,” she says. “Like I said, farmers are the ultimate innovators. We have been since the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, and I am proud to be a part of that generation.”