Editors' Notebook

As the calendar year nears the end, it's once again time in the DTN newsroom to look back at the events that shaped 2024.

In our annual Top 10 Ag Stories retrospective, we take some time to think about the events and the issues that had the biggest influence on agriculture. It's not always easy to get them down to 10, and there's usually a lot of good back-and-forth around the tables and email inboxes about what we all think were the biggest stories.

As is almost always the case, there are the usual major factors. Agriculture is always shaped by weather, and 2024 was no exception. It was the year, in my mind at least, we learned what good root systems -- formed during a spring of adequate rain but not too much -- can do to get a crop through drier conditions late in the season. Weather disasters also typically shape the year in specific regions, and 2024 had its share of those events as well. Weather also kept a significant lid on the size of the cattle herd in the United States.

Market actions also typically are a huge part of agriculture's health during a year. Nothing cures high prices like high prices, the old saying goes. So, we'll examine the market conditions and production realities that have commodities trading in the ranges they are.

Ag policies, and U.S. economic policies in general, continue to be redefined, or to linger unresolved, by the political events of 2024. A new administration, with the potential of a completely new cast of characters, will I'm sure be a factor in our Top 10 list of 2025, as well as having some late-year influences now.

We hope you not only enjoy the retrospective, but use it to put current and future conditions in context. Because context, giving situations the proper perspective and weighing both the pros and the cons of a particular decision, is something of which we could all benefit.

We begin counting down the top stories on Dec. 18, revealing the No. 1 story of the year on Dec. 31.

Enjoy, be safe, and as always, let us know how we can do better.

Greg D. Horstmeier can be reached at greg.horstmeier@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @greghorstmeier

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