Farmers are, as a group, optimists. But tempering that optimism will be the key to effectively marketing crops in 2024.

That was the message delivered by Keith Brownell, the manager of Country Grain Marketing with Viterra, at Dauphin Agricultural Society’s Farm Outlook 2024, Mar. 14, at the Parkland Recreation Complex in Dauphin.

“In order to be a farmer, to be a grain producer especially, you need to be an optimist,” Brownell said. “You take a seed, you put it in the ground, you either take money out of your own bank, or you go to the banker and you convince them to give you money so that you can optimize the growth of that seed. Then there’s a whole bunch of stuff beyond that, that’s completely out of your control. Yet you do it.”

But being an optimist does not necessarily mean being a blind optimist. Producers make pragmatic decisions, Brownell said, based on past experiences and research.

“They’re deliberate decisions. They’re purposeful decisions that go into this,” he said. “In spite of being optimistic you do a lot of things that are purposeful and deliberate.”

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