Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America

Beth Hoffman began her writing career focused on culture and food, producing a radio food series documenting the stories of immigrant women as they cooked in their homes (which was nationally syndicated). Now twenty-five years into writing and producing work on food and agriculture, her areas of expertise have grown to include the potential of agriculture in development, the financial viability of farms, and sustainability in agriculture. She has aired and published on NPR's Morning Edition and on their food blog The Salt, written for The Guardian, Civil Eats, Forbes and produced work for the News Hour, Latino USA, and The World. Most recently she published Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America. Hoffman currently works as a consultant on food + communications projects, speaks about sustainable farming, and writes a blog as part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative.

Hoffman also spent much of her adult life teaching, most recently as an Associate Professor in the Media Studies Department at the University of San Francisco. She was a Fellow and Co-Lecturer at UC Berkeley's School of Journalism (where she also went to graduate school) in the Africa Food and Agriculture Reporting Project and traveled to India, Uganda, and Ethiopia to cover agriculture topics.

Perhaps most importantly, she is now a beginning farmer on a 570-acre farm in Iowa with her husband John. The couple raises pasture-raised beef, goats, and vegetables and forage for mushrooms.