The CME Group Agriculture Index uses volume-weighted rolling futures prices from the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to capture the global agricultural complex, comprising five key sectors: grains, oilseeds, livestock, dairy and lumber. 

Agriculture has been on a wild ride since 2014. Following the commodity boom of 2000 to 2014 with the rise of demand from China and ramping up of global trade, U.S. agriculture saw a half-decade of declining prices leading into the Covid-19 pandemic as national inflation remained stubbornly low. The pandemic sharply reversed that trend, as global inflation took hold with supply chains in gridlock. The 2020 turnaround was concurrent with other bullish agricultural trends such as herd contraction under the current cattle cycle and the biomass-based diesel boom that has ramped up demand for soybean oil. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine further bolstered agricultural prices across the board, with grains leading the way up, sending ripples through other markets. 

The grain and oilseed sector includes the two most widely grown crops in the United States: corn and soybeans. Grown in the fertile plains of the Midwest, corn and soybeans together comprise the majority of actively harvested cropland in the United States. In many regions, the two crops are grown in alternating years by the same producers, with the option to continuous-crop (i.e., planting two consecutive seasons of one crop) creating a decision each season for each producer on what to plant to maximize profitability. Producers and market participants closely watch crop reports throughout the early part of the planting season to determine whether corn or soybeans will win in terms of national acreage: an outcome with a material impact on futures prices. Notable crop reports include the USDA March Prospective Plantings report, which provides survey results on the planting intentions of the nation's farmers, and the June Acreage report, which provides the first indication of planted acreage with the crop year in full swing. 

Corn and soybeans are primarily grown for biofuel and animal feed in the United States. The primary type of field corn, U.S. No. 2 yellow, is deliverable against Corn futures and is distinct from the sweet corn commonly consumed fresh, canned and frozen. Prior to the biofuel boom of the 21st century, soybeans were understood to be crushed for their nutrient-dense and highly perishable meal, leaving much of the storable soybean oil sitting in reserve. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a landmark policy of the 21st century, transformed the U.S. agricultural sectors and created a demand boom for soybean oil. Since the inception of the RFS in 2007, the percentage of soybean oil diverted to biofuel production (specifically the biomass-based diesel fuels biodiesel and renewable diesel) has increased from single digits to nearly 50% in the current year. The percent of corn diverted to ethanol production has leveled off at upwards of 40% in the past decade. 

It is the difference in these two demand-side factors that can largely explain the performance of corn and soybean oil since 2014. While biofuel demand for corn has been level over this period, demand for soybean oil as a feedstock for biomass-based diesel has exploded. While U.S. corn production has increased significantly since 2014, percent of corn to ethanol has remained steady; corn exports have risen to account for increasing supply but not strongly enough to support persistently high prices. During the same period, the percentage of soybean oil domestic disappearance to biofuels nearly doubled, providing a sustained tailwind for prices. 

The influence of Brazil in global soybean markets cannot be overstated, with Brazilian production and exports exerting a huge influence on CBOT Soybean futures prices. The United States held the moniker of the world’s preeminent soybean producer for decades until 2017, when Brazilian production surged ahead. While the U.S. has exported between 30% and 50% of its production since 2000, Brazil regularly exports the majority of its crop, with shipments expected to surpass 64% of production in the last marketing year. Brazilian exports are so great that in the current crop year, their exports are projected to fall just shy of total U.S. production. While Soybean futures are physically deliverable in the United States and supplies are of U.S. origin, export markets are tremendously important to price discovery and CBOT prices are viewed as a benchmark for global trade. Despite surging demand for biofuels in the U.S., Soybean futures prices have been restrained in recent years. Brazil has seized historic U.S. export markets including China, as trade with the U.S. became complicated under the past decade’s tariff regime.

While corn and soybeans are grown in the U.S. for fuel and feed, other grains like wheat, rice and oats are directly consumed by humans (plus a significant share of wheat and oats to animal feed), with a negligible-to-zero percentage of domestic use attributable to biofuels. While corn and soybeans are grown in the powerhouse agricultural “I states” of Illinois, Iowa and Indiana; wheat, oats, and rice are grown in more diffuse and agriculturally diverse regions. 

The CME Agricultural Index contains two varieties of wheat: Chicago Soft Red Winter (SRW) Wheat futures and Kansas City Hard Red Winter (HRW) Wheat futures. As the name suggests, SRW wheat has a softer texture than HRW and is used in the production of cakes, cookies and other baked goods. Soft wheat, with a higher moisture content, is grown in wetter climates such as in the Great Lakes and Eastern regions of the United States and has a lower protein content than hard wheat varieties.

HRW wheat, underlying Kansas City HRW Wheat futures, is the predominant class of wheat produced in the United States. HRW wheat is used traditionally in the production of bread, hardy baked goods and all-purpose flour. Planted in the fall and harvested in the spring and early summer, HRW wheat thrives after overwintering in the cold, snowy and semi-arid plains of the Midwestern and near-Western United States. While SRW is the wheat class that typically underlies the Chicago Wheat futures contract, other wheat types are deliverable against the Chicago Wheat futures contract should economic conditions allow.  

Although wheat is a notable biofuel feedstock in Europe, wheat in the U.S. is consumed by people and animals. Chicago SRW Wheat futures and KC HRW Wheat futures are both physically delivered in the United States, though Chicago SRW wheat in particular is considered to be a global benchmark due to its similar nutritional profile to European and Black Sea wheat varieties. As a result, Chicago SRW wheat saw a massive spike in price following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, as the world feared a global wheat shortage. In the long term, however, economic conditions have been less favorable to Chicago and Kansas City wheat prices. While wheat remains an important component of the American diet, per capita consumption has declined in the last decade due to demographic shifts and changing dietary preferences. In response, domestic production has declined overall, while national wheat ending stocks stood at levels similar to that of 2014 in the latest crop year.  

Rice underlying Rough Rice futures is physically deliverable in the state of Arkansas, which grows more than 45% of all U.S. rice each year. Strong export markets for domestic rice rely on the Mississippi River for transport, making Mississippi River levels, which have dipped perilously low in recent years, impactful on both futures and cash-basis rice markets. The rice grown in the Southeastern United States behind Rough Rice futures is distinct from the rice grown in California both in its variety and its export market. California rice is predominantly medium grain, used for Asian dishes including sushi and exported primarily to Asian markets. Southeastern rice, conversely, is primarily long grain and is exported to Latin and Central America, with a notable percentage of Southeastern rice historically sent to Haiti in the form of humanitarian food aid. 

While Rough Rice futures prices are inherently cyclical, the decade leading up to 2026 has witnessed a distinct structural upward shift. Prices moved away from the lows of the mid-2010s, spiked to multiyear highs between 2022 and 2024, and have sustained a much higher baseline since. This long-term upward trajectory is driven by a combination of geopolitical protectionism, climate volatility and high input costs.

Oats are a crop whose history in North America is inextricably linked with the futures industry. Launched in 1877 along with Corn and Wheat contracts, Oat futures can be considered the first Energy derivative: the underlying crop served as feed for the city’s horses before the advent of the internal combustion engine. In the United States, domestic disappearance of oats due to human consumption surpassed that of animal feed only in the last decade, as livestock managers turned to cheaper and more abundant alternatives and interest in oats has strengthened among consumers. 

Oats in the United States are grown in the northern states of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, an area bordering Canada’s central oat-growing regions. Over the past decades, domestic production has shrunk as farmers made the transition to more profitable crops corn and soybeans. The United States has become the world’s largest importer of oats, consuming nearly 10% of the world’s supply, with almost all imported oats coming from Canada – the world’s largest exporter and a heavy consumer of the crop. Both U.S. and Canadian-grown supplies are physically deliverable under Oat futures. 

The defining oat market event of the decade occurred between late 2021 and early 2022, when a historic drought choked the Canadian Prairies and the U.S. Northern Plains, slashing crop yields by nearly 40% and creating a supply deficit. Oat futures went on a historic rampage, completely upending historical grain spreads and briefly trading at a massive premium over corn. Prices skyrocketed to a record high above $8 per bushel, up from a pre-pandemic average of just $2.50 to $3. Following the spike, growing conditions improved in 2022 and 2023, causing production to bounce back and prices to normalize towards historic means.

Our Feeder Cattle and Live Cattle futures represent distinct stages of the cattle life cycle. Beef cattle life in the United States generally begins on a cow-calf operation. Breeding cows and their calves, on the whole, are maintained year round in pastures with little to no grain input. Once calves are weaned, unless the animals are chosen to stay in the operation to breed, they will enter the feeding system through various paths such as a stocker or backgrounding operation and will be sold as feeder cattle. Feeder Cattle futures are financially settled and represent 50,000 pounds of live feeder cattle at auction in their transition from cow-calf to feedlot operation. Once at the feedlot, animals are fed grain and other feed for three to six months until they reach slaughter weight of 1,050 and 1,600 pounds, at which point they are sold to packers and are potentially eligible for physical delivery under the Live Cattle futures contract. 

The theory of the cattle cycle began in the late 19th century and describes the expansion and reduction of U.S. cattle inventory. Each of the last observed cycles have spanned 10 to 14 years, and now in year 12 of the current cycle, the U.S. cattle industry has long been locked in the contraction phase, characterized by high cattle and carcass prices and low herd numbers. The cycle is indicative of producer and packer supply and demand, which are influenced by immediate and forecasted cattle prices, input costs, weather, breeding and genetics. 

Between 2016 and 2022, U.S. beef exports experienced robust long-term growth, supported by expanding middle-class demand in East Asia and the structural reopening of the Chinese market to American products. As domestic cattle supplies tightened and domestic steer prices climbed toward record highs, however, U.S. beef became less price-competitive globally and the United States is now a solid net importer of beef. 

The physical supply underlying Lean Hog futures between 2014 and 2026 has been defined by pronounced supply and demand volatility, beginning with a 2014 disease outbreak that severely reduced slaughter volume and drove prices to historic highs. Subsequent market cycles were shaped by a sharp increase in export demand from 2018 to 2020 due to another disease outbreak in China. This was followed by severe producer margin compression in 2023 caused by compliance complexities with California’s Proposition 12, an animal welfare regulation, and peak grain inflation. While prices stabilized mid-decade, subsequent downward pressure has been maintained by unprecedented gains in breeding productivity, where record litter rates averaging near 12 pigs per litter offset a contracting national sow herd. This expanded domestic supply has coincided with a steep correction in feed costs, as corn and soybean meal prices retreated from their cyclical highs, lowering the baseline production floor.

Concurrently, the international trade profile for U.S. pork pivoted away from the Chinese market toward established Western Hemisphere partners. Mexico has solidified its position as the primary destination for domestic pork exports, while the United States has systematically surpassed the European Union as the world’s leading pork exporter, capitalizing on strict environmental regulations and disease-related supply constraints within Europe. On the import side, the U.S. profile remains highly consolidated and secondary to domestic output, consisting primarily of integrated live hog and primal cut shipments from Canada. This robust export position, coupled with minimal market penetration from alternative global producers, has made foreign trade the primary mechanism for clearing surplus domestic volume amid flat per capita domestic consumption.

U.S. dairy production has expanded systematically over the past 12 years, driven by steady gains in milk component efficiency and dairy herd genetics. On the trade profile, the United States maintained a robust export presence, particularly for cheese, whey and nonfat dry milk, to clear domestic structural surpluses. Conversely, U.S. dairy imports remained secondary to domestic output, reacting primarily to international price differentials and specific tariff adjustments for premium fats. Class III and IV milk are distinct only in their end-use, with Class III Milk futures dependent on the supply, manufacturing capacity and the commercial use of cheddar cheese and whey. Concurrently, class IV milk prices track the domestic and international supply balances of its end-use products butter and nonfat dry milk (NFDM). 

Butter has exhibited some of the most dramatic price action over the life of the CME Group Agricultural Index. In 2014 and 2015, wholesale butter and Butter futures rose, remaining elevated through 2019 due to a surge in domestic consumer preference for milkfat products, which outpaced regional churn capacities and depleted commercial cold storage inventories. This trend inverted sharply during the 2020 and 2021 period as the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic restricted restaurant and foodservice operations, forcing a collapse in bulk commercial use that pushed domestic milkfat ending stocks to historic highs and depressed prices. By 2024, butter prices staged a significant recovery, driven by a contraction in expected milk yields per cow, heightened regional competition for fluid cream and a resurgence in domestic manufacturing demand that elevated class IV milk price baselines.

The softwood lumber market that underlies Lumber futures has experienced significant volatility in recent years, driven primarily by construction demand and structural supply-side constraints. The U.S. housing market has faced a persistent supply deficit, which became more apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic but originated earlier, following the 2008 housing downturn, construction activity declined significantly, leading to historically low housing starts by 2009. This period of reduced building activity depressed lumber valuations and contributed to sawmill closures in Canada and the U.S. Pacific Northwest during the late 2010s. Simultaneously, sustained demographic demand resulted in an estimated residential unit deficit of approximately 3.8 million by late 2020. These long-term supply and demand factors have resulted in a period of sustained market price volatility through 2023. 

Following the early decade volatility, lumber prices have stabilized as supply has increased and demand moderated. Current pricing reflects a cautious housing market where underlying demographic demand balances challenges from elevated interest rates.