Bonnie Hawthorne

Their neighbors said they were crazy.
Their kids were teased at school.
Turns out they were onto something.

Dreaming of a Vetter World comes at a pivotal moment when regenerative farming has gained global attention. Others are finally realizing what the Vetters have known for decades: eating food grown with pesticides is bad for us, and healthy soil is key to our very survival. That’s why, on the Vetter farm, their most important “crop” is the soil.

With camera and camper in tow, filmmaker Bonnie Hawthorne left her urban California comforts in the rearview mirror to learn from the Vetters—and others in their Nebraska region—about what’s really going on in the Corn Belt. Her debut feature documentary captures the Vetters' challenges as “Big Ag” encroaches. Informative yet entertaining, the film showcases the self-sustaining, self-renewing farm-management experiment Donald and David Vetter initiated in the 1970s. As the Vetters strive to stay ahead of changing weather patterns, market fluctuations—and increasing neighbor pesticide use—their experiment to regenerate soil through organic methods perseveres.