Corn
CME Group - CBOT
The biggest crop on earth, feeding livestock, fueling cars, and anchoring the oldest futures market in the world.
Top Producers
share of 2025/26 production
Top Consumers
share of 2025/26 consumption
Main Uses
US corn use by category, 2024/25 (USDA)
Top Exporters
share of 2025/26 exports
Top Importers
share of 2025/26 imports
Seed Market Share
share of US commercial corn seed sales, 2024 (USDA ERS basis). Bayer sells the DEKALB brand, Corteva the Pioneer and Brevant brands, Syngenta the Golden Harvest and NK brands.
Global production
roughly 1.25 billion tonnes
as of 2025
US crop
record 17.0 billion bushels
as of the January 2026 final estimate
US crop used for ethanol
roughly 40 percent
as of 2025
Largest exporter
United States, roughly 60 to 70 million tonnes; Brazil second at roughly 40 to 45 million
as of 2025
All-time futures high
$8.49 per bushel (August 2012)
as of 2025
Corn is the largest grain crop on the planet, with global production of roughly 1.25 billion tonnes a year, and the CBOT corn future is the most liquid agricultural contract in the world. The United States grows the biggest single crop, a record harvest of 17.0 billion bushels in 2025, but corn's demand profile has changed completely since the 2000s: roughly 40 percent of the US crop now goes to ethanol plants rather than feed troughs, a direct result of the Renewable Fuel Standard mandates passed in 2005 and 2007. That single policy turned corn into an energy commodity, tying its price to gasoline demand and crude oil, and it is why the corn market watches EIA ethanol production data alongside USDA crop reports.
The export map has been redrawn by Brazil. The safrinha, Brazil's second corn crop planted into soybean stubble in January and February and harvested mid-year, now accounts for roughly three quarters of Brazilian corn production and turned the country into the world's largest corn exporter in the 2022/23 season, a position the US had held for most of the previous six decades; the US retook the lead from the 2023/24 season on big harvests, with Brazil a close second. China's import appetite, which exploded to roughly 28 million tonnes in 2020/21 before retreating, and Ukraine's war-disrupted Black Sea exports complete the trade picture. Argentina remains a top-three exporter.
Corn futures trade in March, May, July, September, and December, and the July-December old-crop/new-crop spread is the market's scoreboard for tightness. In surplus years, like the period of roughly $4 per bushel prices that followed the large 2024 and record 2025 US harvests, the curve carries a storage-paying contango. In shortage years, 2012's drought being the modern benchmark, the old crop inverts sharply and prices ration demand. Daily price limits, currently set and reset periodically by the exchange, still halt trading in extreme moves, as they did repeatedly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
How It Trades
| Venue | CME Group - Chicago Board of Trade |
| Benchmark contract | CBOT Corn futures (C, electronic ZC) |
| Contract size | 5,000 bushels (roughly 127 tonnes) |
| Price terms | US cents per bushel |
| Settlement | Physical delivery via shipping certificates issued by approved facilities on the Illinois waterway |
| Typical curve | Carrying-charge contango in surplus years that pays storage; sharp old-crop inversion over new-crop months in shortage years |
| Liquidity | The most liquid agricultural future in the world, routinely trading several hundred thousand contracts a day with open interest above 1.5 million |
Where It Trades
approximate share of global futures volume, 2025
Supply and Demand
Top producers
- United States: roughly 380 to 430 million tonnes (record 2025 crop of 17.0 billion bushels)
- China: roughly 290 million tonnes, almost all consumed domestically
- Brazil: roughly 130 to 135 million tonnes, three quarters from the safrinha second crop
- Argentina: roughly 50 million tonnes
- European Union: roughly 60 million tonnes
- Ukraine: roughly 25 to 30 million tonnes, recovering from wartime lows
The northern hemisphere crop is planted in April and May and harvested September through November; Brazil's safrinha harvests in June and July, giving the world two corn seasons and the market two weather windows to worry about.
Top consumers
- United States (feed plus roughly 5.5 billion bushels of ethanol grind)
- China
- European Union
- Brazil
- Mexico (largest import buyer of US corn)
Major uses
- Livestock and poultry feed, the largest single use globally
- Fuel ethanol, roughly 40 percent of the US crop
- Corn sweeteners, starch, and food products
- Distillers dried grains (DDGs), the feed co-product of ethanol
Fifty Years of Genetic Advances
| Era | Advance | How it changed the field |
|---|---|---|
| 1930s onward | Double-cross then single-cross hybrids | Hybrid vigor roughly tripled yields over open-pollinated corn and made farmers buy fresh seed every year. |
| 1996-1998 | Bt insect resistance | Bacillus thuringiensis genes built corn-borer, then rootworm, protection into the plant, cutting insecticide passes. |
| 1998 | Roundup Ready (glyphosate tolerance) | Monsanto trait let growers spray glyphosate over the top of the crop, simplifying weed control and driving no-till adoption. |
| Mid-2000s | Stacked traits and LibertyLink | Multiple Bt and herbicide genes combined in one hybrid; Bayer LibertyLink added glufosinate tolerance as a glyphosate alternative. |
| Roughly 2010 onward | Glyphosate-resistant weeds | Palmer amaranth and waterhemp escaped glyphosate, pushing growers back toward multiple modes of action. |
| Roughly 2016 onward | Enlist (2,4-D tolerance) | Corteva Enlist corn tolerates 2,4-D choline plus glyphosate and glufosinate, answering resistant weeds with stacked chemistry. |
| 2020s | Short-stature and gene-edited corn | Bayer and BASF short-stature hybrids resist lodging; CRISPR edits target yield and drought without inserting foreign genes. |
Corn was the first crop hybridized at scale and remains the proving ground for new transgenic and herbicide-tolerance traits.
US Average Yield: Corn
bushels per acre; Yields sat on a flat plateau of roughly 25 to 30 bushels for seven decades, took off when hybrid seed spread in the late 1930s, and climbed faster again in the biotech era after 1996, reaching a record 186.5 bushels in 2025. Source: USDA NASS, Crop Production Historical Track Records (April 2026)
What Moves the Price
- US Midwest growing-season weather, especially July pollination heat and rainfall
- Monthly USDA WASDE supply and demand estimates and quarterly stocks reports
- Brazilian safrinha planting pace and mid-year harvest weather
- US ethanol margins, gasoline demand, and biofuel policy (RFS volumes, E15 rules)
- Chinese import buying, which can swing world trade by tens of millions of tonnes
- Black Sea export availability from Ukraine
- The value of the US dollar and the Brazilian real, which set relative export competitiveness
- Acreage battles with soybeans each spring, fought through the new-crop price ratio
Moments That Made the Market
1848
The Chicago Board of Trade opens; corn "to-arrive" contracts become the prototype for all modern futures.
1972
The Great Grain Robbery: the Soviet Union quietly buys massive US grain supplies at subsidized prices, igniting a food-price boom.
1980
President Carter embargoes grain sales to the USSR after the invasion of Afghanistan, scarring US farmers' faith in export markets.
2005-2007
The Renewable Fuel Standard mandates ethanol blending, permanently rerouting roughly 40 percent of the US corn crop into fuel.
2008
Corn spikes above $7.50 per bushel in the global food and energy price boom.
2012
The worst US drought in decades sends corn to its all-time record of $8.49 per bushel.
2022
Russia's February invasion of Ukraine, a top-four corn exporter, sends futures limit-up toward $8 per bushel.
2023
Brazil overtakes the United States as the world's largest corn exporter on the strength of the safrinha crop; the US retakes the lead the following season.
What Changed Since the 2010 Handbook Era
- Ethanol went from a niche outlet to roughly 40 percent of US corn demand, making corn an energy commodity.
- Brazil's safrinha second crop made Brazil the world's largest corn exporter in 2022/23, ending six decades of unchallenged US dominance; the two now trade the top spot.
- China became a major and unpredictable import buyer after 2020, having been broadly self-sufficient in 2010.
- Ukraine's rise and wartime disruption made the Black Sea a permanent supply-risk premium in the corn price.
- Electronic trading replaced the Chicago pits entirely; open outcry grain trading ended in 2015.