24 January 2025
ATR: Seed Oil lobbyist at USDA, Costal Ranching Settles with Park Service with @gavin_spoor - E415
This week, host Vance Crowe and guest Gavin Spoor discuss the stories impacting the culture of agriculture.
The MAHA movement can't be happy with the appointment of the USDA Chief of Staff is the former president of the oilseed lobbying group- we will talk about how farmers and the wider culture are viewing this.
We also will discuss a story being totally ignored by the mainstream media- where ranchers have finally given in and agreed to stop grazing on on Point Reyes, a once iconic seascape in the US with cattle grazing.
We also discuss the Bitcoin Land Price Report, hear about what Gavin believes that almost no one agrees with him on, and we will hear about his worthy adversary.
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The Ag tribes Report is broughtto you by legacy interviews, a video service that capturespeople as they really are, so the future knows who they reallywere. Here's legacy interviews guest, Patricia Showalter on thefun she had, sharing stories for her grandchildren. I really didn't know what toexpect. Were you nervous about it before? Or how did you feelabout No, I just wondered what the heck was going to happen if somebody was on thefence, what would you tell them? Yeah, I'd tell somebody to do it. Just go andhave fun. I've had fun. You're only here for a short time. Mygrandkids are going to say, Oh, can we believe this stuff? I Music. Welcome to the Ag tribesreport, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture ofagriculture with your host, Vance Crowe, the report beginsin 321, let's begin.
Welcome to the Ag tribes Report.I'm your host. Vance Crowe, each week I bring on a co host torepresent the perspectives of one of the many ag tribes thatcollectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This weekwe have a farm con influencer, Gavin Spore, a popcorn farmerfrom Martinsburg in northeastern Missouri. Gavin is the rarefirst generation farmer. His popcorn that he grows on hisfarm is used at the amazing go poo popcorn at Fulton, Missouri,which is a gourmet popcorn place. And they as soon as theyfound out he was coming on, they were like, That's my popcornguy. So Gavin, welcome to the egg tribes. Report glad to behere. So what makes popcorn something? How do you growpopcorn that can be served as gourmet popcorn? Yep.
So I, I don't pop any of itmyself. I specialize only in growing the kernels. But we'regrowing a mushroom kernel, which pops perfectly round and has alot of surface area that can hold those coatings, thatcaramel coating, or whatever flavor they might put on it. Sofocus in a lot on growing high quality popcorn, and people likegopo Buy a lot of it. So you're a first generationfarmer. How long you've been in the game and how quickly, howdid you get in here? Yeah, I've been around farming myentire 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 acreswhile I was a freshman at college, and we've grown itsince then. Now it's full time.
I'm every single day doingsomething on the farm. Well, we are glad to have you here. Iknow that you were big out in social media, and it'll beinteresting to hear what you think is some of the head thinkis some of the headlines for tonight, which we're going tocover. So tonight we're going to cover that the former seed oillobbyist becomes the chief of staff. That's going to cause aproblem with Maha we're going to talk about the ranch familiesthat accepted a settlement to move off of Point Reyes, some ofthe coastal grazing area in California, and we're going totalk a little bit about the Tiktok ban. Gavin is prolific onTiktok, and so good to hear what happened when people had thatshut off after that. Of course, we're heading to the Bitcoinland price report, where we'll compare land where Gavin livesto the price of Bitcoin. We'll talk about his Peter Thielparadox, and, of course, his worthy adversary, and we'regoing to try and do that on this live show in just 30 minutes. Solet's get started. All right.
Well, big news, particularlytoday, was that a former seed oil lobbyist has been announcedas the Chief of Staff of the USDA, so Thomas Massie one ofthe favorites of the libertarian and kind of right wingcommunity. Also the MaHA movement put out a tweet aboutKaylee Buller being appointed to the Chief of Staff of the USDA.She most recently served as the president and CEO of theNational oil seed Processors Association and the edible oilProducers Association. The chief of staff at the USDA, which isthe position she was appointed to, works closely with theSecretary to lead strategic, strategic initiatives, managedaily operations, coordinate policy and act as a key advisor.So this is a very important person and a core belief of theMaHA movement, which is being led by Robert Kennedy Jr,believes that seed oils are bad and evil, and they are what iscausing inflammation and allergies and all sorts ofproblems. So Gavin, what does it say about the MaHA movement thatthe lead of the national oil seeds and edible producers,edible oil producers is now the Chief of Staff.
My best guess is there's goingto be lots of arguments behind closed doors, maybe, you know,open doors with cement fighting. Because if you're putting peoplein positions like that with their prior work experience,that is going directly. Gets what, what they're trying toaccomplish with that make America healthy again movement.So it'll be interesting to see what comes of it. Yeah, you know, it's, it's afascinating thing, because the world of agriculture, I think,is only just now becoming, like, really aware just how big theanti seed oil movement is. And I think anybody that was lookingat her background would have known this is something that isgoing to pop onto a bunch of people's radars, you know, seedoils, which are the, you know, core staples. It's not only isit soybeans, but it's canola oil, all the pulses, or a bunchof the pulses that are up north.
So it's, I mean, I think that,AG, maybe doesn't realize how big of a part of Maha this isgoing to be and that it's going to cause a bunch of problems. Yep, yep, that is true. I willsay I've been doing the carnivore diet and trying to cutout seed oils, and I feel great, but at the same time, a lot ofmy income every year comes from selling soybeans. So it's one ofthose weird things where I don't know, I don't really know how Ifeel about it even, and I'm a farmer that's growing up. So how long have you been on thecarnivore diet, off and on here, a couple months harvest, and then Christmasreally screwed it up. Because, man, there's a lot of good foodthat's not meat that you eat around Christmas time, but quitea while off and on, and lost about 15 pounds on it, and itfelt really good. So yeah, to me, so I've been doing theketo diet, which is a ton of oils, but they typically try andpush you towards being away from seed oils. And I have that kindof like suspicion that seed oils are one of those things that ifI were to pass you a glass of water and keep looking down atit and kind of smiling and then looking up at you and thensmiling, you know, you're not going to drink that water,because you're afraid something is hidden in there. Andsometimes I wonder if seed oils are a little like that, likewhen you start watching seed oils, it means that you'rewatching a whole bunch of your calorie intake. But because, youknow, there's like this implication that there might besomething bad in there that that's what's going on. But atthe same time, in my Keto diet, I don't eat a lot of seed oils,and I do feel better, but there's a lot of things going onthere.
Yeah, I'm going to say it'smostly the elimination of everything else, all thepreservatives and the weird words that you can't pronounce,getting rid of almost all of that and just cutting out somany calories because you're only eating meat, that forcedelimination is probably where most of the benefits comingfrom. I'm not going to point my finger at seed oil, but I willsay I'm not eating a lot of them, and I feel fine. What I think probably shocked theworld the most was that the National there was a nationaloil seed and edible oil producers coalition, right?There's one of these for for everybody. They everybody needsto have their interests lobbied for before Congress and and, butI imagine most people are like, only finding out that there wasa head lobbyist for this at all.
Yeah, yeah. Personally, I didn't knowthat she held that position. You know, I had something I neverheard of, and I farmed. So, yeah, so it'll be interesting tosee how that plays out. I think that this is not the end ofthat. To see Thomas Massie out there, uh, tweeting about it'sgoing to bring a lot of attention to it. All right.Headline number two, this is one that I have seen popping up forthe last couple of weeks some of the more freedom minded cattleranching people in my x feed are talking about how ranch familieshave finally accepted a settlement to move off of PointReyes. So point race is in the West Coast, in California, andit is a place where cattle ranching and a state park, or,I'm sorry, a federal park, a national park have been so. Adeal was announced on January 8 where 12 ranching familiesagreed to end their operations within 15 months. This was partof a settlement resolving a long standing dispute betweenenvironmental groups, ranchers and the National Park Service,the natural The Nature Conservancy played a key role inmediating this agreement offering compensation toranchers for their buyout. A total amount of the buyout wasaround $30 million and this was aimed at resolving litigationover what was considered to be the environmental impacts onpark lands. So ranching in port in Point Reyes began in the mid19th century with dairy and beef cattle operations, and it becamea big part of the cultural and economic landscape. Then in 1962the National Seashore was established, and eventuallyPresident Kennedy included it with it, made it a nationalpark. But part of that was that it was they were allowed tocontinue their ranching operations, to graze them there.So it ended up continuing on and becoming a really big deal.There were a bunch of Nature Conservancy groups in here. Iwas going to play a video. I wasn't able to pull it up, soactually, I just wanted to bring this to you. Did you hear aboutthis, Gavin? Was this a story that made that hit your. Xradar. It didn't hit my x radarpersonally, but I will say I think there's going to beunintended consequences that come from taking all of thoselivestock off of the land. Same as you know, forest fires aremore prevalent because you might not be grazing underneath theforest floor. So then it might take a decade or two, butsomething's gonna spark. And sorry, that was the video I was whydon't we play it? It'll be worth it. Yes, we're leaving Point Reyes, California, the partyline has been that this is a voluntary agreement between theranching families and the environmental groups that suedthem and the National Park Service has absolutely nothingto do with it. I've been skeptical of that, and I think Ihave proof. 20 years ago, a guy named Tim setnica was thesuperintendent for Channel Islands National Park, also inCalifornia, watched the National Park Service persecute ranchingfamilies on the islands when they decided they wanted theland. And while he was complicit at the time, it seems, he wentthrough a big change of heart, eventually turned whistleblower,going row, telling anyone who would listen, quote, The ParkService has no soul. Essentially said that the Park Service has aplaybook where they work secretly with environmentalgroups to get American citizens, including ranchers, off of landwanted by the government. The environmental groups would suethe ranchers until they couldn't fight anymore, and then the ParkService would swoop in. Back in 2014 Tim setnica held a meetingin Marin County where he warned the ranchers On Point Reyesseashore, the government is coming for you. Reporter for ThePoint Reyes light there at the time, wrote Mr. Seneca framedthe Park Service as a clandestine government agencythat ignores data and is hostile to ranching. Much of theinteragency work was more or less orchestrated to help bringabout the end of ranching.
Remember, these ranchers allhave a gag order. So to reiterate, 13 years before theseranchers voluntarily left Point Reyes in a totally autonomousdecision with these environmental groups. The formerparks employee warned them that the government was coming afterthem and that the outcome would look a whole lot like whathappened last week. So that was a documentaryfilmmaker named Keely Brazil Covello, and she has the Xhandle America un one. How did that video strike you? Gavin,sounds like maybe they didn't want tomove off, but they were paid handsomely to do so, yeah, I think that there's a newstyle going on. It became particularly popular on Tiktokand x with somebody like Keely here. There's also that IanCarroll where they're talking about a story, they make itreally engaging, and the end of the story is always, dot, dot,dot.
Yes, yeah, there's that hook, yeah, but there's, like, theweirdness that you know, like when you start thinking about,can Nature Conservancy, some of these other environmental groupsbeing involved with the Park Service. How does that strikeyou? There's a lot of places that environmental groups wouldlike to move grazing off of. We don't do a ton of that inMissouri, but it's still something that you got to watchout for. What do you think about the environmental groups beinginvolved with agriculture? It's hard to fight against them whentheir pockets are that deep, especially individual farms, orjust farms in that little niche in that one area. I mean, youcan't compete with that. They're just going to throw money at ittill 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.
Yeah, I know that people likeKalman, Joe, some of the other ex people I know, particularlythe ranchers. They really strongly dislike theenvironmental groups being involved with a lot of thecheckoff groups, you know, citing that they have such bigpockets, and they're also just so well connected that they theymake things change when the when maybe the people in the checkoffgroup or the larger industry organization are open to thatchange when the ranchers aren't. So it's interesting. I thinkthat was a big movement that was going on for quite a few years.We'll see if it continues. All right, the final headline I wantto go through, this probably impacted farmers on a greaterlevel than most people could have imagined, because a ton ofAG is on Tiktok that was shut down for a few hours this weekbefore the Trump inauguration.
This led many, many people whohad strong audiences. It's the way they find out about theirnews. In agriculture getting completely shut off from it.Gavin, you went through the I don't want to call this the darktime. How did it go? How big of a deal was it? Well, I didn't have any terriblewithdrawals, but they didn't give us much time to miss it. Itwas down probably 12 to 18 hours. So I don't know what theydid while it was down, but they definitely messed with thealgorithm. But yeah, there's people I'm only friends withthrough Tiktok. I'm not friends with them on other platforms. Sohad it had the ban, or whatever lasted longer, I would havenoticed pretty quickly that a couple core people I talked to,I guess what I had to start calling them on the phone. Well, 12 hours is enoughto start changing your habits.
Did you start spending a littlemore time on x? Or what did you find yourself doing? Yeah, I was still scrolling. I.Definitely check X and Instagram and Facebook, just because I hadnowhere else to click. So I was going to click on one of those,because I do spend quite a bit of time on tick tock. So yeah, Iguess I noticed it a little bit, but if not near like I wouldhave had it been a week or more. What does your tribe think? Is thissomething that's going to keep happening? Is, is, is tick tock,like building barns on rented land, and it's going to go away.Or do you think it's here to stay? It's always changing and evolving. Iwill say, if they find a reason to get rid of it, and it's goneforever, everyone's going to pick up and go somewhere else.If you know they're going to post somewhere, we're going tofind a group somewhere. It's just gonna move. And I don'tknow what app it would move to.
I know there was already ticktock copycats. Everybody was the lemonade or red, whatever theywere called. I didn't make one on one of those pages, but Iknow lots of people were already fleeing and heading thatdirection. So yeah, and there was also thepeople going over to the Chinese version of Tiktok. Did you findyourself going over there? No, I didn't. But I mean, theywere going in drove, so I don't if their goal was to stop theChinese influence on us. They didn't really accomplishanything. They probably made it worse by people going to thoseapps.
So for somebody like me, thatI've, you know, dabbled in in Tiktok. But what's the allure?Why is that doing so well, do you think among people in yourtribe? It's quick. I mean, it catchesyou. You swipe your finger, and there's, there's video playingright in your face, and it's tailored directly to what you'reinterested in. It's always changing. So it's like,honestly, it's probably akin to, like a drug addict. They giveyou exactly what they want in huge doses, like, you don't everreally get sick of it, because as soon as you log out, youthink about logging, you know, getting right back on. It's waymore fast paced than a scroll on Facebook or x is.
And then you put content onthere. What do you do to keep, you know, people's attention?What are you talking about that your audience cares about? I cater to a very small niche,and my goal is to, like, talk to young farmers and showcase howI'm growing an operation. So I'm not trying to talk to a largeaudience, but a very, very specific one. So I'm just makecontent for them, and if other people join in and find itinteresting, and so be it. But most of the time, I'm trying tojust talk to one small group, and sometimes it goes viral andhits different veins of people, but most of the time it stayswithin AG, yeah, there's something reallymagnificent 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 acutelythan some of the other social media channels, which is why Ithink it's so popular. Oh, and you watch it take off inreal time. I mean, a lot of videos will get five to 20,000views, but like, one of the last ones I posted before the band,like, hit almost a million. And you just watch it rock it offand like, your phone starts blowing up. You're getting thelikes, the comments, the shares, it just goes nuts, and then justas quickly as it rocket it up, engagement falls and they're onto something else. So it's a it's like a very fast burningrocket.
All right, well, that's going todo it for our headlines tonight. If you have any headlines youthink you we should be covering, you can always send it [email protected] or you can find me on x at Vance.Crowe, the Point Reyes story was actually sent to me and theThomas Massey story. So it makes a big difference on what wecover here on the show up next is the Bitcoin land pricereport. So Gavin, let's, let's jump in right here. Where do youlive and how much does a an acre of good farmland cost in yourcounty? I'm in northeast Missouri,Audrey County, I would say eight to 10,000 for the good groundwith a 9000 average right now, all right, so we'll use 9000 solast week, Bitcoin was right at $100,000 per coin. This week,we're sitting at 103,000 you know, it's a 3% gain, but thatcould be lost in the blink of an eye. So it's right around thesame price it was. And so if we were factoring $9,000 per acre,that means you could buy one acre where Gavin lives for point087, Bitcoin, or in other words, one bitcoin would buy you almost11 and a half acres of farmland there. How does that sit withyou? Gavin, Did you buy any land with Bitcoin? I've never bought land with Bitcoin. I wish Iwould have bought a lot more Bitcoin back in the day. Thatwould make that land sound cheap.
Is it something you've stayedwith? Have you have you kept it in wallets or taken it offexchanges? I've got a little bit. I mostly dabbledin it. Background, COVID. I've pretty well got out of thecrypto. It just goes up and down, way too much for me. Iwould waste too much time watching it. I need to just buyit and hold it, forget I own it. I think so. You know, I thinkone of the things I wanted to throw this up here, because it'sapropos right now, because with the talk about tariffs going onwith Canada and the premiere of Al. Berta was one of thosepeople that came down, flew down and said, I'm gonna meet withTrump, if my leaders, if there is no leader, I'm gonna go aheadand take that front and center.
So I've talked about thisseveral times with regard to Bitcoin, is that there is allthis oil wells that are either stranded that, you know, they'rejust too far away from a pipeline, or they have a bunchof natural gas that they have to get off of them. This righthere. This picture right here is a is what's called a hash cut,and it's produced by a guy named Steve barber up in Canada. Andwhat this is is you just park this thing right next to one ofthose oil wells where you have to where it's flaring offnatural gas. And instead, you hook that up, you put it in, youturn it into a generator that burns on natural gas, and thenyou hook Bitcoin miners to it.
And I think this is going togrow. We're going to put data centers on there for AI. We'regoing to be doing more Bitcoin mining. And I think WesternCanada is going to be able to pick up Bitcoin and use that asa way to export energy when they don't have pipelines. Have youheard this idea, Gavin, is this something that you're aware of?I'm new to that idea. Specifically,I'm a little bit familiar with how they mine it. The more thatgets mined, the longer it takes to mine more. Is that correct?It takes longer to mine a Bitcoin now than it used to this the time is the same. It'sjust there's way, way more competition. So you have to addmore and more and more computers if you want to be somebody thathas a chance at winning those but the time is always going tobe around 10 minutes. That's the goal. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right.Well, the Bitcoin land price report was brought to you todayby river. This is the exchange that I use to buy bitcoin, and Idon't have a formal relationship with them, but if you use thelink in the show notes, I will get a referral credit, and wewill both earn Bitcoin based on you buying it. I use riverbecause they don't have fees on reoccurring buys, and itactually is a really, really easy user interface. So if youwant to support the podcast and get bitcoin figure out what'sgoing on here, use the link to river.com moving on. Now we havethe Peter Thiel paradox. This is where I asked Gavin, what is onething that you believe that almost no one in your tribeagrees with you on?
Okay, so this is coming fromlike a first gen farmer's perspective, but I think thedeath of family farms is splitting that farm up equallyamong siblings. Just to be fair to all the siblings, everyonegets an equal cut. I think that is the death of the family farm.And if they would choose one or two children that want tocontinue the farm, smaller farms would have a much better chanceof surviving if that farm doesn't have to get re boughtevery generation. And when you think about that,what do you think the other kids that didn't didn't stay on thefarm? What should they get for their inheritance?
I think that's up to the parentsto make smart investments, if they can, and maybe leave them alife insurance policy or, you know, whatever stocks they mayhave, but splitting that farm up to call it equal at the end ofsomeone's life, just that farm ends up going to the auctionblock. Do you think a lot of peopledisagree with on you on this idea? It depends. Probably the peoplethat disagree are the off farm siblings. I think anyone thatthat has had to buy off the family farm probably agrees withit. But there's lots of people that don't you know the fair isequal, and equals not always fair. That saying however thatgoes, I think rings true here.
So yeah, I'm I think that there are quitea few people that agree with you on this idea, but I think thatyou're right. The ones that don't believe it, or the onesthat are sitting in the middle of it, they, they, they mightdisagree with you. So I'm going to give you a three one on thisone, okay, and, and, but I think it's interesting to think aboutinheritance, and what's going on there, actually, as a relationto Bitcoin. I think if a parent was also stacking Bitcoin at thesame time as they're stacking land, that would be another wayto hold property. But, man, if you tell that to people inagriculture, they flip their stack. Yeah. All right. So nowon to the final section. This is the worthy adversary, Gavin, whois one person that you respect but you strongly disagree with.
On x, the Mizzou guy, the MizzouTiger. I love his agronomic practices. I think he is a greatfarmer, but we just have totally different world views when itcomes to the influencer side of things, and just, well, lots oflife in general. But I do respect him as a farmer. I thinkhe's a good farmer, but that's about where it ends. Well, Mizzou, tiger, I thinkmight be the only person that's been listed twice on this list.So that is that saying something? And I think that'sthat's very interesting. And you when you think about theagronomic practices, which are ones that you're that you findinteresting about his perspectives, just the way he farms innortheast Missouri does. And overdo it. There's not lots ofextra passes. He's very economical about the way he goesafter it, because Missouri is not always guaranteed a crop. Itreally rain in August makes the difference just the way hefarms. His mentality behind equipment. I do think he's agood farmer, but everything else kind of detracts a little fromthere. So alright, well, for a full listof people cited on the worthy adversaries, check out the liston my ex. And it's kind of a pretty great collection ofinteresting characters. And you never know who from that listyou end up hearing something you needed to hear. So Gavin, as wewrap up, talk a little bit about your outreach to farmers who whoshould follow you, who'd be interested in your stuff, andwhere can they find you?
Sure, yeah, so I'm on all theplatforms. Uh, x is Gavin Spore, same as Instagram and Facebook,just my name, uh, on tick tock. I'm the popcorn farmer, and I'mposting almost daily about my journey as a young farmer,things I'm doing to grow the operation, things that areworking, things that aren't working, and do actually today,just did some outreach with the local FFA chapter, went to acareer fair, told them about farming and agriculture andentrepreneurship and being an influencer, you know, whetherthat's a good word or a bad word. So I try to do lots ofthat. But yeah, come, come tag along, and I ask lots ofquestions on X, I mainly go there for others point of view.But then the other platforms I'm I'm kind of showing more of whatI do on my own form. Yeah, man, that term influencer blewup with that farm con.
Influencer list Did, did any ofthe blowback hit you or people taking shots at whether or notyou should have been on that list? I mean, I think that I qualifiedto 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 conferenceVance, that probably was less than 10 minutes of the wholeshow. I mean, if you took a long bathroom break, you did not evenknow it happened, and wouldn't have known to happen. And thatwas all that got talked about, was during that little 10 minutepiece. But that's what got talked about the most in thewhole conference, was that little segment.
Yeah, I as soon as I saw theinvitation, I was like, these guys are very clever. And Idon't know if you've been in the ag, social media world longenough to know that this is at least the third time that I'veseen a list get published, and all kinds of people fly out ofnowhere and get really upset about it, and, you know, makefun of other people. But what's really funny to me is that allof social media is an attempt to influence other people with yourthoughts if you're posting there, and so all that hate thatgot thrown on influencers for being on that list. I don't knowit was a lot like, well, if you were better at it, maybe, maybeyou would have been on the list.
So they're just not that good atinfluencing all right? Well, that's going to do it for the Agtribes report. Don't forget, if you have been thinking aboutdoing a legacy interview for your loved ones, where we sitdown, and I personally record a conversation with them,describing their life, their childhood, where your ancestorscame from, the wisdom that they've learned along the way.Go to legacyinterviews.com to find out more, and if you'vebeen thinking about Bitcoin, I always tell people that the onlyway that you're gonna learn how it works is to buy just a littlebit of it, get yourself a wallet and move the money from theexchange to a wallet. And when you get done with that, you'regoing to be like, oh, there's a lot more here that I didn'tknow, that I could know about, and it's a lot more interesting.So if you're interested in buying Bitcoin, the exchangethat I recommend is river.com, and if you use the affiliate, itwill help both the show out and you out. All right, that's goingto do it for this show next week, and feel free to disagree.You