Good day citizens and welcome to the Thomas Jefferson Hour. This week, another special one-on-one conversation

between Clay Jenkinson and Beth Hoffman. Clay, can you tell us a little bit about Beth Hoffman

before we go to the conversation?

I was so pleased to have the opportunity to interview her.

I came across her book at the farm, The Dollars and Sense of Growing Tune in America.

It dovetails nicely with one of my own interests, which is the future of food production,

the future of agriculture, the continuation of the agrarian dream for America that was best articulated

by Thomas Jefferson. And so I'm working with governing.com on a series called Listening to America.

I asked her to sit down for an interview she did. She was fascinating.

She and her husband left the Bay Area in California to move to his family's farm in Iowa

and to try to transform it from a typical petrochemical big equipment agrar production facility

that had been quite successful, by the way, into something closer to a sustainable farm.

And just what that means and what they met by way of resistance and how they have gone about this great challenge

is the stuff of the interview.

It's a great conversation. Very interesting. Let's go to it now.

There are fascinating couples. She's a fascinating person. Her book is really interesting.

I recommend it to people who might want to know about the future of food production in this country.

And she's funny. So let's listen to some segments of my conversation with Beth Huffman,

the author of Bet the Farm, The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America.

So I'm so glad to be doing this. I read your book with great joy.

And it's sort of two things, isn't it? It's sort of the story, which is a wonderful story.

But it's ongoing. There you still are.

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