CHICAGO, July 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced plans to launch Sorghum basis futures. Trading is expected to start on August 24, 2026, pending regulatory review.
Sorghum is a versatile commodity uniquely positioned to meet global demand from the domestic feed industry, the international export market and, more recently, biofuels.
The new basis contract reflects the price difference between sorghum and corn, two types of grain used in animal feed as well as ethanol feedstock. Sorghum's premium over corn usually signals international demand driving values higher. A deep discount compels domestic buyers to shift feed rations toward cheaper sorghum.
"While sorghum prices tend to track corn closely over extended macroeconomic cycles, geopolitical events and regional supply shifts can disrupt that relationship," said John Ricci, Managing Director and Global Head of Agricultural Products, CME Group. "In recent years, the sorghum-to-corn cash spread has experienced considerable volatility, swinging from sharp premiums to steep discounts. The Sorghum futures contract will provide market participants a precise instrument to hedge that basis risk."
The contracts will be physically delivered, with grain being loaded out by truck or rail from a network of elevators in Kansas, the nation's largest sorghum-producing state, by using the established Kansas City Hard Red Winter Wheat delivery network.
CME Group achieved record quarterly volume of 2.1 million contracts for Agricultural products in Q2 2026. Corn futures and options reached record open interest of 4.1 million contracts in Q2 2026, with the second highest quarterly volumes on record at 695,000 contracts traded.
The new Sorghum basis futures contracts will be listed and subject to the rules of CBOT. For more information on these products, please visit https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/agriculture/grains/sorghum.
As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.
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SOURCE CME Group
