Where Farm Prices Are Traded: The Main Agricultural Futures Exchanges
Published · Updated · 3 min read
Most agricultural prices quoted in the news come from a handful of futures exchanges. Local prices are usually the futures price plus or minus a basis for location and quality, so knowing which exchange sets the benchmark for a crop shows which number a local price moves with.
The main exchanges and what they set
Each exchange lists contracts for a specific grade, delivered to a specific place - which is why the same crop can have several benchmarks:
- CBOT (CME Group)Corn, soybeans, soybean oil and meal, soft red winter wheat; hard red winter wheat (Kansas City)
- Euronext (Matif)Milling wheat, rapeseed and corn - the benchmarks for EU grain and oilseeds
- ICE Futures U.S.Arabica coffee ("C"), cocoa, raw sugar No. 11, cotton No. 2
- ICE Futures EuropeRobusta coffee, London cocoa, white sugar, UK feed wheat
- Dalian Commodity ExchangeSoybean meal - the most traded agricultural futures contract by volume - plus soybeans, corn and palm olein
- Zhengzhou Commodity ExchangeCotton, sugar, rapeseed meal, apples
- Bursa MalaysiaCrude palm oil (FCPO), the world benchmark since 1980
- MIAX FuturesHard red spring wheat
- B3Corn, live cattle, arabica coffee - prices in Brazilian reais
India: a special case
India's commodity exchanges NCDEX and MCX list many agricultural contracts, but the market regulator SEBI suspended futures trading in wheat, paddy (non-basmati), chana, mustard seed, soybean and its products, crude palm oil and moong in December 2021 to curb food inflation, and has extended the suspension repeatedly, most recently until 31 March 2027. For those crops, Indian farmers look to mandi prices and the government's minimum support prices instead.
How futures and farm prices connect
A futures contract is a standardized promise to deliver a set quantity and grade in a given month; each exchange trades several delivery months at once, and the nearest one (the "front month") is the price usually quoted. Very few contracts end in delivery - most are closed before expiry - but the possibility of delivery keeps futures close to the physical market. Elevators and traders then price grain as futures plus a local basis, and producers and buyers use futures and options to lock in prices in advance, as explained in Futures Markets Explained Simply.
Why agri.markets shows no live futures
Real-time and delayed futures quotes are licensed data owned by the exchanges, so this site shows official benchmark prices (World Bank, IMF) and physical cash and producer prices instead - many of which are themselves derived from futures, such as the ICO coffee indicator or the ICCO cocoa price. The exchanges publish delayed quotes free of charge on their own websites.
Current prices for this topic
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Matif?
- The historical name of the Paris futures market, today part of Euronext. Its milling wheat, rapeseed and corn contracts are the benchmark prices for grain and oilseeds in the EU.
- Which exchange sets the world wheat price?
- There is no single one: Chicago (soft red winter), Kansas City (hard red winter), Minneapolis (hard red spring) and Paris (milling wheat) each price a different class of wheat, and the Black Sea physical market matters as much as any of them.
- Why does a local price differ from the futures price?
- Because futures price a standard grade at a specific delivery point; the local price adds or subtracts a basis for transport, storage, quality and local supply and demand.