The Stuart People Active for Library Service (PALS) will be hosting their monthly speaker event on Saturday.

This time, the group decided to bring in Beth Hoffman, the Author of “Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America.” Hoffman says she spent most of her life on the east and west coasts of America, and it wasn’t until her husband wanted to move back to Iowa to take over the family farm that she had thought about living in the midwest. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio that once they got moved to south central Iowa, that’s when they were in for a learning experience, and that is where her book got its start.

“Even though I had been reporting on food and agriculture for about 25 years, and he was a farm kid and went to culinary school and he’s a butcher, there were so many things that we did not know or understand about agriculture, mainly the economics of it. There was so much more to learn than what we had known previously. The book is about, really, American agriculture, but told through our story.”

Hoffman mentions that a wide variety of people read her book, and that she’s heard the backgrounds of many different individuals. From farm kids, to those interested in becoming farmers, to those just interested in learning something about life in rural areas. She adds that “Bet the Farm” can be purchased on Amazon, at bookstores and their websites, and that the Stuart PALS had some for sale at the library as well, and that she’d be bringing some to the event that would be for sale too. Hoffman’s talk and presentation will be Saturday, beginning at 10am at the Stuart Public Library.