How agri.markets sources and calculates prices

Every number on this site comes from an official public source and is refreshed daily. This page explains where each series comes from, what agri.markets computes itself, and how the conversions in every chart work.

Sources

  • World Bank (Pink Sheet) - monthly global benchmark prices, back to 1960 where available. Shown as "World (benchmark price)".
  • IMF Primary Commodity Price System - monthly benchmark prices for commodities the World Bank doesn't cover.
  • EU Agri-food Data Portal (European Commission) - weekly reference prices for individual EU markets such as Rouen, Hamburg or Bologna, for cereals, dairy products, pigmeat, lamb and eggs. Where "European Union" appears, it is the Commission's own EU-wide average.
  • Eurostat - annual producer prices per EU country.
  • Statistics Canada - monthly producer prices per province.
  • USDA NASS - monthly national US prices, shown as "United States".
  • USDA AMS - daily cash grain bids from individual elevators and trade locations, averaged per state per day.
  • USDA WASDE and PSD Online - supply and demand estimates and season-average price projections, on the Market Reports page.
  • FAOSTAT - annual producer prices per country, and the production and trade statistics behind the top producer, importer and exporter tables.
  • Meat & Livestock Australia - Australian livestock price indicators.
  • World Food Programme - local retail prices on the map.

Averages computed by agri.markets

Where a region list shows an average - "EU-27 (average)", "Canada (average)", "US daily average", or "World (average)" for commodities without an official global benchmark - it is a simple, unweighted mean across whichever regions reported in that period, computed by agri.markets. It is not weighted by production and is not an official statistic of the source.

Currency conversion

Prices can be shown in USD, EUR, CAD, GBP, AUD and INR. Conversion uses monthly European Central Bank reference rates since 1999 (some currencies start later). It is meant for comparison, not for precise historical exchange-rate accounting.

Units and bushels

A bushel is a fixed weight that differs per grain, not a fixed volume. Conversions use the USDA/CBOT standard test weights: wheat and soybeans 27.22 kg, corn and sorghum 25.40 kg, barley 21.77 kg, oats 14.52 kg.

Inflation adjustment

"Inflation-adjusted (real)" rescales each historical price to the purchasing power of the most recent month using the US CPI-U (Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, not seasonally adjusted, via the St. Louis Fed). It is applied the same way whatever currency a price is shown in, because CPI-U measures general US price levels, not an exchange rate. It is a rough, standard way to compare prices across decades, not a substitute for a commodity- or country-specific deflator.

Updates and data gaps

All sources are fetched once a day. If a source fails or returns an incomplete dataset, the last complete data is kept rather than showing a gap. Sources publish on their own schedules - weekly, monthly or annually - so every price on the site shows the period it refers to.