Cultivating Change
Growing Prosperity

Arkansan, Farmer, Rural Advocate

I'M HALLIE

I'm a farmer from the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta.

Farming isn't just a business; it is a way of life that demands everything but gives back in the form of purpose, resilience, and community. The fight for the future of agriculture is just beginning, and I won’t stop until family farms have a real shot at survival again.

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boy selecting a cherry tomato from an adult hand

They praise the farmer but starve the program: why not feed our kids Arkansas-grown food?

What would happen if we fed our kids food grown right here in the Delta? We’d nourish our kids and rebuild our rural economies at the same time.

3 days ago2 min read

We Need Our Storytellers Back: The Case for Reviving Rural Newspapers

In small towns, a newspaper is more than a paper. It’s where we read our kid’s name on the honor roll or hear about the last speaker at...

5 days ago2 min read

John Shoffner examines a fresh crop of purple hull peas. close up of hands opening a purple hull pea pod to look at the bean inside.

The Danger of RFK Jr. and the MAHA Movement: When Wellness Becomes a Weapon

Let’s be real clear—talking about food systems and public health isn’t the same thing as actually supporting the people who grow the food.

6 days ago3 min read

agricultural warehouse with three seed carts parked in front

When Tariffs Freeze Progress: How Trump's Trade Policy Will Put Our Sweet Potato Dream on Ice

So here we were: a shovel-ready, job-creating, community-rooted project—frozen in place. And that’s the part policymakers often miss.

Apr 62 min read

a woman staring worriedly of in the distance

The Farm Wasn't the Problem

The problem is policy made by people who've never had to bet their future on a field or a harvest or a hometown.

Apr 42 min read

On the Shoffner Family Farm in the late 1970s. (Left to Right) Mann Shoffner (grandfather), John Shoffner (grandson), BJ Shoffner (great-grandson)

Lessons from the 1980s Farm Crisis—and Why Arkansas Can’t Afford to Repeat Them

We’ve lived this story before, the Farm Crisis of the 1980s. We are walking into a storm we’ve seen before—but this time, we know better.

Apr 33 min read

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Cultivating Change Growing Prosperity