32. From Six Acres to a National Popcorn Brand: Gavin Spoor Isn’t Waiting on a Hand-Me-Down
Alex Lowery
A lot of folks in agriculture are born into it. Gavin Spoor wasn’t.
He didn’t inherit land. He didn’t have a family name that opened gates. What he had was six rented acres, a high school diploma, and a fire in his gut to figure it out.
On this episode of Your Ag Empire, Gavin joins us from northeast Missouri to talk about how he’s built a real, working operation—2,000 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, milo, and a direct-to-consumer popcorn brand that ships to all 50 states. Spoor Farms didn’t start with a legacy. It started with a college kid walking fields by hand and learning business lessons the hard way.
We cover a lot of ground in this one—literally and figuratively. Gavin talks about:
Growing without a playbook: how he scaled his acres without overextending himself
Picking the right tools (and not just the expensive ones)
Why he rebuilt a 50-year-old planter and runs a box-fill, pre-DEF tractor
Using social media to find land, build trust, and sell product
What it really takes to farm without a family safety net
There’s no “grit” narrative here. Just real talk about being young, scrappy, and smart in an industry that doesn’t hand out second chances.
Gavin also opens up about his favorite crop—popcorn—and how a few one-minute Facebook videos turned into a national customer base. He shares the logistics of harvesting, cleaning, bagging, and shipping a niche crop while running a full-blown row crop operation. Spoiler: it’s a lot. But he’s not complaining.
If you’ve ever wondered if it’s still possible to start from scratch in agriculture, this episode is proof that you can. It’s just going to cost you more time, more patience, and more persistence than you think.
Links & Mentions
TikTok: @ThePopcornFarmer
Instagram: @gavin_spoor
Pass It On
Know someone trying to break into ag without the benefit of a big last name or a pile of paid-for ground? Send this episode their way. It might just be the nudge they need to go rent their first six acres.