Farmer Hallie Shoffner, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, thinks a new approach to agriculture policy is needed in this country. She blames incumbent GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, in part, for current conditions, and said she would offer much different leadership if voters elect her.
“What I’m hearing is that when I go into these communities, they are really tired of the fact that we’re fighting about these things instead of solving them. These are solvable problems, but the truth is, we’re all tired of this rhetoric of left and right and liberal and conservative. We are real people with real problems. We’re crying out for someone who believes that the purpose of government is to create opportunities and then get out of the way,” she said.
Shoffner filed this week for the Senate seat and is expected to face a primary challenge from Lewisville Mayor Ethan Dunbar.
In an exclusive interview, she spoke at length on the Farm Bill and ag policy. It is personal for her as she is a sixth generation farmer who had to shut down a portion of her operations this past year.
“We are experiencing a crisis that’s deepened and we may lose as many as one in every three farmers by this time next year. We were in that first wave, and it really didn’t matter what we did. It didn’t matter what crops we planted or how hard we worked or whether we did everything. It just wasn’t enough,” she said. “And in closing the farm, I realized you don’t have to be a farmer to know what it feels like to work hard and do things right and fall behind. And it’s not because we failed, but it’s because the system has been rigged against us by politicians like Tom Cotton.”
“We haven’t had a Farm Bill in years. I mean, that’s one of our biggest issues. One of my biggest criticisms with Tom Cotton is that he voted against it twice. He was the only member of the Republican delegation to vote against the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill is what helps farmers compete on a global stage,” she added.
While President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill addresses some aspects of a Farm Bill related to price loss coverage on crops, it doesn’t kick in until late 2026.
“Tom Cotton will tell you, ‘Oh, well, we put all this stuff in the One Big Beautiful Bill, so farmers are fine.’ Well, that’s not true for two reasons. Number one, those subsidies don’t kick in until October of 2026. By that point, it’ll be far too late for many farmers who are struggling now. But also, it doesn’t fix the problem. It is throwing money at an open wound that won’t be fixed by just additional subsidies. We don’t have a market. Our soybean market – China buying American soybeans is gone… they went to Brazil and they built their own soybean infrastructure in Brazil and they don’t need us anymore. Furthermore, right after we sent $20 billion and then $40 billion to the country of Argentina to bail them out for their crisis, they then cut their export taxes and sent soybeans to China. So we bailed out a country that then undercut our own farmers and sold soybeans to China,” said Shoffner.
The Democratic candidate said America needs a more comprehensive farm policy that goes beyond crop insurance and price supports. Shoffner advocates for a more integrated domestic agricultural ecosystem.
“The truth is, we are promoting an agricultural policy in this country in which we don’t produce our own food. We grow soybeans here in Arkansas. That’s what animals eat, not people,” she said. “Imagine if we created an agricultural system in which we produced food right here in the state of Arkansas, we could feed not only ourselves, but the entire country. We have the water, we have the dirt, we have the best farmers in the world. All we need are the policy incentives. All we need is for the government to build markets. As a United States Senator, it would be my job to go knock down the door of any company or country that wants to buy an Arkansas grown, an Arkansas made product. It would be my job to knock down the doors of the USDA and the FDA and say, ‘you want to put an agricultural research project somewhere? We’ve got the best land grant state in the entire country.’ That would be the job.
“That’s the kind of Farm Bill we need. And not only that, not only does that put money back into the pockets of farmers growing higher value crops, we can then turn around and feed that food to families in Arkansas. We can sell that food to the largest restaurant in the entire United States: public school cafeterias. We could feed our own children, and then imagine if we integrated that work into our curriculum so kids suddenly have a relationship with where their food comes from. And then if something threatens the food supply chain, they can advocate on their own behalf and on the behalf of farmers,” she added.
You can watch Shoffner’s full interview in the video below.
