Gavin Spoor Built a Farm From Six Rented Acres. Now He’s Redefining What Growth Looks Like in American Agriculture.
Many people in agriculture grow up in it. Gavin Spoor chose it.
He did not inherit land, and he did not walk into an operation with generations of infrastructure behind it. What he had was six rented acres in northeast Missouri, a high school diploma, and the willingness to learn the business from the ground up.
At 18, he cash-rented those first acres and planted soybeans. The crop profited enough to cover a portion of that years college tuition at the University of Missouri and help finance his first tractor, an International 1066. It marked the point where ambition shifted into a plan.
Gavin Spoor: First-generation farmer. 2,000 acres. Direct-to-consumer brand shipping to all 50 states.
Spoor Farms now manages 2,000 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, and milo. His direct-to-consumer popcorn ships to customers in all 50 states. Gavin built it step by step, choosing discipline over speed and strategy over appearance.
He scaled the row-crop operation with careful debt management, staying lean when others chased upgrades. While many young farmers signed notes on new equipment, he rebuilt a 50-year-old planter and ran a pre-DEF tractor that kept the work moving. He picked the tools that fit the operation, not the tools that looked the part.
The popcorn enterprise shows the same thinking. Instead of competing on commodity terms, he created a product he grows, harvests, cleans, bags, and ships himself. In 2018, he planted 15 acres of popcorn. A few short Facebook videos introduced the story behind it, and a national customer base followed. TikTok pushed it even further, drawing more than 160,000 followers and steady demand. Managing both operations is complex, but he treats complexity as part of the job.
Starting from scratch teaches what established operations sometimes overlook. You learn to make decisions without a cushion. You learn the difference between a necessary tool and a shiny one. You learn that social media can be more than an outlet; it can be a path to land access, consumer trust, and diversified income. You learn that timing, work ethic, and imagination matter as much as acreage.
Gavin understands the production side and the consumer side, and he treats each choice as a financial one. There is no room for guesswork. That pressure has shaped the way he builds and the way he teaches. He spends time helping young farmers understand both where their food comes from and what it actually takes to run an operation.
This is why Gavin is part of the Empire Ag Mastermind. He is here to share what he has learned, connect with operators who are serious about growth, and take part in honest conversations about the future of agriculture.