ATR: Seed Oil lobbyist at USDA, Costal Ranching Settles with Park Service with @gavin_spoor
About this episode
Gavin Spoor (@gavin_spoor) joins Vance for a run covering the appointment of a former seed-oil-industry lobbyist to a chief-of-staff role touching USDA/MAHA policy, and the Point Reyes coastal ranching families' settlement to vacate National Park Service grazing land in California — a story the show frames as another instance of legacy agricultural operations losing ground to federal land-use priorities. The episode's most durable idea, though, is Spoor's structural theory of family-farm attrition: it's not market pressure or corporate consolidation causing the "death of the family farm" so much as inheritance practice itself — equal-division-among-siblings estate planning that forces farms to be rebought or sold off every generation rather than concentrated in the hands of the one or two heirs actually committed to continuing operations. This lands as a rare structural, non-political explanation for farm consolidation trends that the show usually attributes to policy or corporate power. The worthy adversary segment has Spoor naming a well-known agronomy-focused farmer influencer ("the Mizzou tiger") whose farming skill he respects but whose broader worldview he rejects — illustrating the show's recurring "respect but disagree" framing.
“So this is a very important person and a core belief of the MAHA movement... Believes that seed oils are bad and evil and they're what is causing inflammation and allergies and all sorts of problems. So Gavin, what does it say about the Maha movement that the lead of the national oil seeds and edible producers, edible oil producers is now the chief of staff?”
“This is coming from like a first gen farmer's perspective, but I think the death of family farms is splitting that farm up equally amongst siblings. Just to be fair to all the siblings, everyone gets an equal cut. I think that is the death of the family farm. And if they would choose one or two children that want to continue the farm, smaller farms would have a much better chance of surviving if that farm doesn't have to get rebought every generation.”
“On x. The, that Mizzou guy, the Mizzou tiger. I love his agronomic practices. I think he's a great farmer, but we just have totally different worldviews when it comes to the influencer side of things... but that's about where it ends.”
Key moments
- Spoor's inheritance-based theory of family farm decline — equal sibling division forcing farm rebuys each generation.
- Discussion of a former seed-oil lobbyist becoming chief of staff and the tension it creates with MAHA's anti-seed-oil stance.
- Spoor's worthy adversary answer distinguishing agronomic respect from worldview disagreement.
Notable quotes
“I think the death of family farms is splitting that farm up equally amongst siblings.”
Predictions made in this episode
- Family farm consolidation and loss will continue to be driven primarily by equal-inheritance estate practices forcing farm rebuys each generation, rather than by corporate consolidation alone, and farms that adopt single-heir succession planning will show materially better survival rates.
- Date made: 2025-01-24, position ~50%.
- Timeframe: multi-generational, no fixed near-term horizon.
- Parameters: would be falsified if farm succession studies show equal-inheritance division is not a statistically significant driver of family farm loss compared to market/corporate factors.
Full transcript
Read the full transcript (word-for-word, with timestamps)
Park Service [00:00:00] The Ag Tribes report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are, so the future knows who they really were. Here's Legacy Interviews guest Patricia Showalter. On the fun she had sharing stories for her grandchildren. I really didn't know what to expect.
Vance Crowe [00:00:18] Were you nervous about it before? Or how did you feel
Park Service [00:00:20] About it before? No, I just wondered what the heck was going to happen
Vance Crowe [00:00:24] If somebody was on the fence, what would you tell them?
Park Service [00:00:26] Yeah, I'd tell somebody to do it. Just go and have fun. I've had fun. You're only here for a short time. My grandkids are going to say, oh, when cow can we believe this stuff? Welcome to the Ag Tribes report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crowe. The report begins in 3, 2, 1. Let's begin.
Vance Crowe [00:01:04] Welcome to the Ag Tribes report. I'm your host, Vance Crowe. Each week I bring on a co-host to represent the perspectives of one of the many ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week we have a farm con influencer, Gavin Spore, a popcorn farmer from Martinsburg in northeastern Missouri. Gavin is the rare first generation farmer. His popcorn that he grows on his farm is used at the Amazing Go Poop popcorn at Fulton, Missouri, which is a gourmet popcorn place. And they, as soon as they found out he was coming on, they were like, that's my popcorn guy. So, Gavin, welcome to the Ag Tribes report.
Park Service [00:01:44] Glad to be here.
Vance Crowe [00:01:46] So what makes popcorn something, how do you grow popcorn that can be served as gourmet popcorn?
Park Service [00:01:52] Yep. So I, I don't pop any of it myself. I specialize only in growing the kernels, but we're growing a mushroom kernel, which pops perfectly round and has a lot of surface area that can hold those coatings, that caramel coating or, or whatever flavor they might put on it. So focus in a lot on growing high quality popcorn and people like Go poke, buy a lot of it.
Vance Crowe [00:02:14] So you're a first generation farmer. How long you've been in the game and how, how quickly, how did you get in here?
Park Service [00:02:20] Yeah, I, I've been around farming my entire life from a young age. I knew I wanted to be a farmer, but at the age of 19, I got the chance to cash rent six acres while I was a freshman at college. And we've grown it since then. Now it's full-time. I'm, I'm every single day doing something on the farm.
Vance Crowe [00:02:36] Well, we are glad to have you here. I know that you're big out in social media and it'll be interesting to hear what you think is some of the headlines for tonight, which we're gonna cover. So tonight we're gonna cover that the former seed oil lobbyist becomes the chief of staff. That's gonna cause a problem with Maha. We're gonna talk about the ranch families that accepted a settlement to move off of Point Reyes, some of the coastal grazing area in California. And we're gonna talk a little bit about the TikTok ban. Gavin is prolific on TikTok and so good to hear what happened when people had that shut off. After that. Of course, we're heading to the Bitcoin land price report where we'll compare land where Gavin lives to the price of Bitcoin. We'll talk about his Peter Thiel paradox and of course his worthy adversary. And we're gonna try and do that on this live show in just 30 minutes. So let's get started. All right, well, big news, particularly today was that a former seed oil lobbyist has been announced as the chief of staff of the USDA. So Thomas Massey, one of the favorites of the libertarian and kind of right-wing community. Also the Maha movement put out a tweet about Kaley Buller being appointed to the chief of staff of the USDA. She most recently served as the president and CEO of the National Oil Seed Processors Association and the Edible Oil Producers Association, the chief of staff at the USDA, which is the position she was appointed to, works closely with the secretary to lead STR strategic initiatives, managed daily operations, coordinate policy and act as a key advisor.
Vance Crowe [00:04:17] So this is a very important person and a core belief of the MAHA movement, which is being led by Robert Kennedy Jr. Believes that seed oils are bad and evil and they're what is causing inflammation and allergies and all sorts of problems. So Gavin, what does it say about the Maha movement that the lead of the national oil seeds and edible producers, edible oil producers is now the chief of staff?
Park Service [00:04:45] My best guess is there's going to be lots of arguments behind closed doors and maybe, you know, open doors with some infighting. Because if you're putting people in positions like that with their prior work experience, that is going directly against what, what they're trying to accomplish with that make America healthy again movement. So it'll be interesting to see what comes of it.
Vance Crowe [00:05:06] It, you know, it's, it's a fascinating thing because the world of agriculture I think is only just now becoming like really aware just how big the antis seeded oil movement is. And I think anybody that was looking at her background would've known this is something that is gonna pop up onto a bunch of people's radars. You know, seed oils, which are the, you know, core staples. It's not only is it soybeans, but it's canola oil, all the pulses or a bunch of the pulses that are up north. So it's, I mean it, I think that ag maybe doesn't realize how big of a part of Maha this is gonna be and that it's gonna cause a bunch of problems.
Park Service [00:05:44] Yep, yep. That is true. I will say I've been doing the carnivore diet and trying to cut out seed oils and I feel great, but at the same time, a lot of my income every year comes from selling soybeans. So it's one of those weird things where, I don't know, I don't really know how, how, how I feel about it even. And I'm a farmer that's growing 'em. So
Vance Crowe [00:06:04] How long have you been on the carnivore diet?
Park Service [00:06:07] Off and on here. A couple months harvest and then Christmas really screwed it up. 'cause man, there's a lot of good food that's not meat that you eat around Christmas time, but quite a while off and on and, and lost about 15 pounds on it and it felt really good. So,
Vance Crowe [00:06:23] Yeah, to me, so I've been doing the keto diet, which is a ton of oils, but they typically try and push you towards being away from seed oils. And I have that kind of like suspicion that seed oils are one of those things that if I were to pass you a glass of water and keep looking down at it and kind of smiling and then looking up at you and then smiling, you know, you're not gonna drink that water 'cause you're afraid something is hidden in there. Yeah. And sometimes I wonder if seed oils are a little like that. Like when you start watching seed oils, it means that you're watching a whole bunch of your calorie intake. But because you know, there's like this implication that there might be something bad in there that that's what's going on. But at the same time, in my keto diet, I don't need a lot of seed oils and I do feel better, but there's a lot of things going on there.
Park Service [00:07:09] Yeah, I I'm going to say it's mostly the elimination of everything else, all the preservatives and the, and the, the weird words that you can't pronounce. Getting rid of almost all of that and, and just cutting out so many calories. 'cause you're only eating meat. That forced elimination is probably where most of the benefits coming from. I'm not gonna point my finger at Cyl, but I will say I'm not eating a lot of 'em and I feel fine. So
Vance Crowe [00:07:33] What I think probably shocked the world the most was that the national, there was a national oil seed and edible oil producers coalition. Right. There's one of these for, for everybody they, that everybody needs to have their interests lobbied for before Congress. And, and, but I imagine most people are like only finding out that there was a head lobbyist for this at all.
Park Service [00:07:57] Yeah, yeah. Personally, I didn't know that she held that position. You know, I had something I never heard of and I farmed, so,
Vance Crowe [00:08:05] Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I think that this is not the end of that to see Thomas Massey out there tweeting about it. It's gonna bring a lot of attention to it. Alright, headline number two. This is one that I have seen popping up for the last couple of weeks. Some of the more freedom minded cattle ranching people in my ex feed are talking about how ranch families have finally accepted a settlement to move off of Point Reyes. So Point Reyes is in the West coast in California and it is a place where cattle ranching and a state park, or I'm sorry, a federal park, a national park, have been, so a deal was announced on January 8th where 12 ranching families agreed to end their operations within 15 months. This was part of a settlement resolving a longstanding dispute between environmental groups, ranchers, and the National Park Service. The natural, the Nature Conservancy played a key role in mediating this agreement, offering compensation to ranchers for their buyout. A total amount of the buyout was around $30 million. And this was aimed at resolving litigation over what was considered to be the environmental impacts on Parklands. So ranching in port in point, Reyes began in the mid 19th century with dairy and beef cattle operations and it became a big part of the cultural and economic landscape. Then in 1962, the National Seashore was established and eventually President Kennedy included it with, it, made it a national park.
Vance Crowe [00:09:36] But part of that was that it was, they were allowed to continue their ranching operations to graze them there. So it, it ended up continuing on and becoming a really big deal. There were a bunch of Nature Conservancy groups in here. I was gonna play a video, I wasn't able to pull it up. So actually I just wanted to bring this to you. Did you hear about this, Gavin? Was this a story that that made, that hit your X radar?
Park Service [00:10:01] It didn't hit my X radar personally, but I will say I think there's gonna be unintended consequences that come from taking all of those livestock off of the land. Same as, you know, forest fires are more prevalent because you might not be grazing underneath the forest floor. So then it, it might take a decade or two, but something's gonna spark and,
Vance Crowe [00:10:22] Sorry, that was the video I was, Hey,
Park Service [00:10:24] Let play,
Vance Crowe [00:10:25] Why don't we play it? It'll be worth it.
Park Service [00:10:27] We're leaving Point Reyes, California. The party line has been that this is a voluntary agreement between the ranching families and the environmental groups that sued them. And the National Park Service has absolutely nothing to do with it. I've been skeptical of that and I think I have proof. 20 years ago a guy named Tim Ika was a superintendent for Channel Islands National Park, also in California. He watched the National Park Service persecute ranching families on the islands when they decided they wanted the land. And while he was complicit at the time, it seems he went through a big change of heart, eventually turned whistleblower, Boeing Rogue telling anyone who would listen. Quote, the Park Service has no soul. Essentially he said that the Park Service has a playbook where they work secretly with environmental groups to get American citizens, including ranchers off of land wanted by the government. The environmental groups would sue the ranchers until they couldn't fight anymore and then the Park Service would swoop in back in 2014, Tim Nikica held a meeting in Marin County where he warned the ranchers on Point Reyes Seashore, the government is coming for you. Reporter for the Point. Reyes Light there at the time wrote, Mr. Seneca framed the Park Service as a clandestine government agency that ignores data and is hostile to ranching. Much of the interagency work was more or less orchestrated to help bring about the end of ranching. Remember these ranchers all have a gag order. So to reiterate, 13 years before these ranchers voluntarily left point res in a totally autonomous decision with these environmental groups, a former parks employee warned them that the government was coming after them and that the outcome would look a whole lot like what happened last week.
Vance Crowe [00:11:52] So that was a documentary filmmaker named Keely Brazil Covelo, and she has the Ex Handle America UN won. How did that video strike you Gavin?
Park Service [00:12:03] Sounds like maybe they didn't wanna move off, but they were paid handsomely to do so.
Vance Crowe [00:12:10] Yeah, I think that there's a new style going on. It became particularly popular on TikTok and X with somebody like Keely here. There's also that Ian Carroll where they're talking about a story, they make it really engaging and the end of the story is always.dot dot.
Park Service [00:12:27] Yes. Yeah, there's that hook.
Vance Crowe [00:12:31] Yeah. But there's like the weirdness that you know, like when you start thinking about can Nature conservancy some of these other environmental groups being involved with the Park Service, how does that strike you? There's a lot of places that environmental groups would like to move grazing off of. We don't do a ton of that in Missouri, but it's still something that you gotta watch out for. What do you think about the environmental groups being involved with agriculture?
Park Service [00:12:54] It's hard to fight against 'em when their pockets are that deep. Especially individual farms or just farms in that little niche in that one area. I mean, you can't compete with that. They're, they're just gonna throw money at it till they get whatever, whatever problem solved they want solved or whatever problem they think exists. I think it's dangerous, but I also don't really know how to fight against it.
Vance Crowe [00:13:15] Yeah. I know that people like Kaman Joe, some of the other ex people I know, particularly the ranchers, they really strongly dislike the environmental groups being involved with a lot of the checkoff groups, you know, citing that they have such big pockets and they're also just so well connected that they, they make things change when the, when maybe the people in the checkoff group or the larger industry organization are open to that change when the ranchers aren't. So it's interesting. I think that was a big movement that was going on for quite a few years. We'll see if it continues. Alright, the final headline, I want to go through this probably impacted farmers on a greater level than most people could have imagined because a ton of ag is on TikTok that was shut down for a few hours this week before the Trump inauguration. This led many, many people who had strong audiences. It's the way they find out about their news in agriculture getting completely shut off from it. Gavin, you went through the, I don't, I don't want you to call this the dark time. How did it go? How big of a deal was it?
Park Service [00:14:22] Well, I didn't have any terrible withdrawals, but they didn't give us much time to miss it. It was down probably 12 to 18 hours. So I don't know what they did while it was down, but they definitely messed with the algorithm. But yeah, there, there's people I'm only friends with through TikTok. I, I'm not friends with them on other platforms. So had it had the ban or whatever lasted longer, I, I would've noticed pretty quickly that a couple core people I talked to, I guess I would've had to start calling 'em on the phone.
Vance Crowe [00:14:51] Well, 12 hours is enough to start changing your habits. Did you start spending a little more time on X or what did you find yourself doing?
Park Service [00:14:58] Yeah, I was still scrolling. I definitely checked X and, and Instagram and Facebook just 'cause I had nowhere else to click, so I was going to click on one of those. 'cause I do spend quite a bit of time on TikTok. So yeah, I, I guess I noticed it a little bit, but not near, like I would've had it been a week or more.
Vance Crowe [00:15:16] What does your tribe think? Is this something that's gonna keep happening? Is is, is tiktoks like building barns on rented land and it's gonna go away? Or do you think it's here to stay?
Park Service [00:15:27] It's always changing and evolving. I will say, if they find a reason to get rid of it and it's gone forever, everyone's gonna pick up and go somewhere else. It, you know, they're gonna post somewhere, we're gonna find a group somewhere, it's just gonna move. And I don't know what app it would move to. I know there was already TikTok copycats, everybody was the lemonade or, or red, whatever they were called. I didn't make one on one of those pages, but I know lots of people were already fleeing and heading that direction. So
Vance Crowe [00:15:56] Yeah. And there was also the people going over to the Chinese version of, of TikTok. Yeah. Did you find yourself going over there?
Park Service [00:16:02] No, I didn't. But they, I mean, they were going and drove. So I don't, if their goal was to stop the Chinese influence on us, they didn't really accomplish anything. They probably made it worse by people going to those apps.
Vance Crowe [00:16:15] So for somebody like me that I've, you know, dabbled in, in TikTok, but what's the allure? Why is that doing so well do you think among people in your tribe?
Park Service [00:16:24] It's quick. I mean, it catches you, you swipe your finger and there's, there's video playing right in your face and it's tailored directly to what you're interested in. And it's always changing. So it's like, honestly, it's probably akin to like a drug addict. They, they give you exactly what they want and huge doses. Like you don't ever really get sick of it. 'cause as soon as you log out, you think about logging, you know, getting right back on. It's way more fast paced than a, a scroll on Facebook or X is,
Vance Crowe [00:16:51] And then you put content on there. What do you do to, to keep, you know, people's attention? What are you talking about that your audience cares about?
Park Service [00:16:58] So I cater to a very small niche and my, my goal is to like talk to young farmers and showcase how I'm growing an operation. So I'm not trying to talk to a large audience, but a very, very specific one. So I'm just make content for them and if other people join in and find it interesting and so be it. But most of the time I'm, I'm trying to just talk to one small group and sometimes it goes viral and hits different veins of people, but most of the time it stays within ag.
Vance Crowe [00:17:25] Yeah. There's something really magnificent when a video goes viral on TikTok and you can like feel it. It's just, it's unbelievable. And I think however their algorithm works, it makes you feel more acutely than some of the other social media channels, which is why I think it's so popular.
Park Service [00:17:41] Oh, and you watch it take off in real time. I mean a lot of videos will get five to 20,000 views, but like one of the last ones I posted before, the band like hit almost a million and you just watch it, rock it off, and like your phone starts blowing up, you're getting the likes, the comments, the shares, it just goes nuts. And then just as quickly as it rocketed up, engagement falls and the they're onto something else. So it, it's a, it's like a very fast burning rocket dock.
Vance Crowe [00:18:08] All right. Well that's gonna do it for our headlines tonight. If you have any headlines you think you we should be covering, you can always send it to Vance at Legacy Interviews dot com or you can find me on X at Vance Crowe. The Point Reyes story was actually sent to me and the Thomas Massey story, so it makes a big difference on what we cover here on the show. Up next is the Bitcoin land price report. So Gavin, let's, let's jump in right here. Where do you live and how much does a, an acre of good farmland cost in your county?
Park Service [00:18:42] I'm in northeast Missouri, Audra County, I would say eight to 10,000 for the good ground with a 9,000 average right now.
Vance Crowe [00:18:49] Alright, so we'll use 9,000. So last week Bitcoin was right at a hundred thousand dollars per coin. This week we're sitting at 103,000. You know, it's, it's a 3% gain, but that could be lost in the blink of an eye. So it's, it's right around the same price it was. And so if we were factoring $9,000 per acre, that means you could buy one acre where Gavin lives for 0.087 Bitcoin, or in other words, one Bitcoin would buy you almost 11 and a half acres of farmland there. How does that sit with you, Gavin? Did you buy any land with Bitcoin?
Park Service [00:19:24] I've never bought land with Bitcoin. I wish I would've bought a lot more Bitcoin back in the day that would make that land sound cheap.
Vance Crowe [00:19:30] Is it something you've stayed with? Have you, have you kept it in wallets or taken it off exchanges?
Park Service [00:19:36] I, I've got a little bit. I mostly dabbled in it back around COVID. I, I've pretty well got out of the crypto. It just goes up and down way too much for me. I, I would waste too much time watching it. I need to just buy it and hold it and forget I own it.
Vance Crowe [00:19:50] I think. So, you know, I think one of the things, I wanted to throw this up here 'cause it's apropos right now. 'cause with the talk about tariffs going on with Canada and the premier of Alberta was one of those people that came down, flew down and said, I'm gonna meet with Trump if my leaders, if there is no leader, I'm gonna go ahead and take that front and center. So I've talked about this several times with regard to Bitcoin is that there is all this oil wells that are either stranded that, you know, they're just too far away from a pipeline or they have a bunch of natural gas that they have to get off of them. This right here, this picture right here is a, is what's called a hash hut and it's produced by a guy named Steve Barber up in Canada. And what this is, is you just park this thing right next to one of those oil wells where you have to, where it's flaring off natural gas and instead you hook that up, you put it in, you turn it into a generator that burns on natural gas and then you hook Bitcoin miners to it. And I think this is gonna grow, we're gonna put data centers on there for ai. We're gonna be doing more Bitcoin mining and I think Western Canada is going to be able to pick up Bitcoin and use that as a way to export energy when they don't have pipelines. Have you heard this idea, Gavin? Is this something that you're aware of?
Park Service [00:21:02] I'm new to that idea specifically. I'm a little bit familiar with how they mine it. Now the, the more that gets mined, the longer it takes to mine more, isn't that correct? It takes longer to mine a Bitcoin now than it used to.
Vance Crowe [00:21:15] The the time is the same. It is just, there's way, way more competition. So you have to add more and more and more computers if you wanna be somebody that has a chance at winning those. But the time is always going to be around 10 minutes. That's the goal.
Park Service [00:21:29] Gotcha, gotcha.
Vance Crowe [00:21:31] All right. Well the Bitcoin land price to report was brought to you today by River. This is the exchange that I use to buy Bitcoin and I don't have a formal relationship with them, but if you use the link in the show notes, I will get a referral credit and we will both earn Bitcoin based on you buying it. I use River because they don't have fees on reoccurring buys and it actually is a really, really easy user interface. So if you wanna support the podcast and get Bitcoin, figure out what's going on here, use the link to river.com. Moving on, now we have the Peter Teel paradox. This is where I ask Gavin, who, what is one thing that you believe that almost no one in your tribe agrees with you on?
Park Service [00:22:15] Okay, so this is coming from like a first gen farmer's perspective, but I think the death of family farms is splitting that farm up equally amongst siblings. Just to be fair to all the siblings, everyone gets an equal cut. I think that is the death of the family farm. And if they would choose one or two children that want to continue the farm, smaller farms would have a much better chance of surviving if that farm doesn't have to get rebought every generation.
Vance Crowe [00:22:43] And when you think about that, what do you think the other kids that didn't didn't stay on the farm, what should they get for their inheritance?
Park Service [00:22:51] I think that's up to the parents to make smart investments if they can and maybe leave them a life insurance policy or, you know, whatever stocks they may have. But splitting that farm up to call it equal at the end of someone's life, just that farm ends up going to the auction block.
Vance Crowe [00:23:06] Do you think a lot of people disagree with on you on this idea?
Park Service [00:23:10] It depends. Probably the people that disagree are the off-farm siblings. I think anyone that that has had to buy off the family farm probably agrees with it, but there's lots of people that don't, you know, the fair is equal and equals not always fair. That, that saying however that goes, I think rings true here. So
Vance Crowe [00:23:28] Yeah, I'm, I I think that there are quite a few people that agree with you on this idea, but I think that you're right, the ones that don't believe it or the ones that are sitting in the middle of it, they, they, they might disagree with you. So I'm gonna give you a three one on this one.
Park Service [00:23:43] Okay.
Vance Crowe [00:23:44] And, and, but I think it's interesting to think about inheritance and what's going on there actually as a relation to Bitcoin. I think if a parent was also stacking Bitcoin at the same time as they're stacking land, that would be another way to hold property. But man, if you tell that to people in agriculture, they flip their stack.
Park Service [00:24:03] Yeah.
Vance Crowe [00:24:05] All right. So now onto the final section. This is the worthy adversary Gavin, who is one person that you respect but you strongly disagree with
Park Service [00:24:16] On x. The, that Mizzou guy, the Mizzou tiger. I, I love his agronomic practices. I think he's a great farmer, but we just have totally different worldviews when it comes to the influencer side of things and just, well, lots of life in general, but I, I do respect him as a farmer. I think he's a good farmer, but that's about where it ends.
Vance Crowe [00:24:36] Well, Mizzou tiger I think might be the only person that's been listed twice on this list. So that is, that's saying something and I think that's, that's very interesting. And you, when you think about the agronomic practices, which are ones that you're, that, that you find interesting about his perspectives,
Park Service [00:24:56] Just the way he farms in northeast Missouri, he doesn't overdo it. There's not lots of extra passes. He's very economical about the way he goes after it because Missouri's not always guaranteed a crop. It really rain in August, makes the difference just the way he farms his mentality behind equipment. I I do think he's a good farmer, but to everything else kind of detracts a little from there. So.
Vance Crowe [00:25:20] All right, well for a full list of people cited on the Worthy Adversaries, check out the list on my ex and it's, it's kind of a pretty great collection of, of interesting characters and you never know who from that list you end up hearing something you needed to hear. So Gavin, as we wrap up, talk a little bit about your outreach to farmers. Who, who should follow you, who'd be interested in your stuff, and where can they find you?
Park Service [00:25:47] Sure. Yeah, so I'm on all the platforms X as Gavin Spore, same as Instagram and Facebook, just my name on TikTok, I'm the popcorn farmer and I'm posting almost daily about my journey as a young farmer. Things I'm doing to grow the operation, things that are working, things that aren't working. And do actually today just did some outreach with the local FFA chapter, went to a career fair, told 'em about farming and agriculture and entrepreneurship and being an influencer, you know, whether that's a good word or a bad word. So that I, I try to do lots of that. But yeah, come, come tag along and I ask lots of questions on XI mainly go there for others' point of view, but then the other platforms, I'm, I'm kind of showing more of what I do on my own form.
Vance Crowe [00:26:29] Yeah, man, that term influencer blew up with that Farm con influencer list. Did, did any of the blow back hit you or people taking shots at whether or not you should have been on that list?
Park Service [00:26:41] I mean, I think they, I, I qualified to be on the list whether people liked the list or not, but as a whole, that was such a smart move for them to do that because it got so much reach. But at that whole conference van, that probably was less than 10 minutes of the whole show. I mean, if you took a long bathroom break, you did not even know it happened and wouldn't have known it happened. And that was all that got talked about was during that little 10 minute piece. But that's what got talked about the most in the whole conference, was that little segment.
Vance Crowe [00:27:09] Yeah, I, I, as soon as I saw the invitation, I was like, these guys are very clever. And I don't know if you've been in the ag social media world long enough to know that this is at least the third time that I've seen a list get published and all kinds of people fly outta nowhere and get really upset about it and, you know, make fun of other people. But what's really funny to me is that all of social media is an attempt to influence other people with your thoughts if you're posting there. And so all that hate that got thrown on influencers for being on that list, I don't know, it, it was a lot like, well, if you were better at it, maybe, maybe you would've been on the list. So they're just not that good at influencing. All right, well that's gonna do it for the Ag Tribes report. Don't forget, if you have been thinking about doing a legacy interview for your loved ones where we sit down and I personally record a conversation with them describing their life, their childhood, where your ancestors came from, the wisdom that they've learned along the way, go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. And if you've been thinking about Bitcoin, I always tell people that the only way that you're gonna learn how it works is to buy just a little bit of it, get yourself a wallet and move the money from the exchange to a wallet. And when you get done with that, you're gonna be like, oh, there's a lot more here that I didn't know that I could know about. And it's a lot more interesting. So if you're interested in buying Bitcoin, the exchange that I recommend is river.com and if you use the affiliate, it will help both the show out and you out.
Vance Crowe [00:28:43] Alright, that's gonna do it for this show next week and feel free to disagree.
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