by George Jared (gjared@talkbusiness.net)
Hallie Shoffner grew up on a farm near the township of Shoffner, named for her family in rural Jackson County. When she left to attend college at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., she decided to study one of her passions, literature.
After graduating, she received a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service and went to work at a nonprofit in North Little Rock that focused on the local Hispanic community. She loved her job, but the row crop fields in the Arkansas Delta kept calling her home, she told Talk Business & Politics.
Her parents, John and Wendy Shoffner, started SFR Seed in 1988, a soybean and rice research farm. Among other things, the company specializes in new seed plot trials. Shoffner decided to return to the family business in 2016, which included a 1,500-acre farm.
