Corn Price History: Monthly Global Maize Price Since 1992

Corn (maize) is the world’s largest grain crop by volume, used mainly for animal feed, ethanol, and processed food. This dataset reproduces the World Bank Pink Sheet benchmark for US No. 2 yellow maize (FOB US Gulf ports), a monthly average in US dollars per metric ton, with continuous coverage since 1992. The United States is by far the largest producer and exporter.

Dataset: Corn Price (1992–2026) · Updated 2026-10-01

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) · CC BY 4.0

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one calendar month.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats: monthly observations covering more than three decades.

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source Data Access: World Bank Pink Sheet

The underlying series is the “Maize” column of the Monthly Prices sheet in the World Bank’s Commodity Price Data, known as the Pink Sheet. The World Bank publishes it as a monthly Excel workbook on its commodity markets page, under a CC BY 4.0 licence that requires attribution to the World Bank.

The Eco3min dataset reproduces that column unmodified from January 1992, in US dollars per metric ton, in a stable CSV with a fixed column name for direct use in Python, R or any data pipeline. The URL never changes, which makes it suitable for automated scripts.

Direct CSV Access: Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/corn-price.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/corn-price.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["corn_price"].describe())

df.plot(x="date", y="corn_price", title="Corn Price", legend=False)

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/corn-price.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$corn_price)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL, no download or API key required.

Methodology

The World Bank reports the maize price in US dollars per metric ton for US No. 2 yellow maize, FOB US Gulf ports: a physical export quotation, not a futures settlement. The World Bank description lists no change of grade or delivery point for this column.

Values are monthly averages, which smooth the intra-month swings visible in daily futures and physical quotes. The series begins in 1992.

An Eco3min pipeline on GitHub Actions reads the Pink Sheet workbook after each monthly release, keeps the column unmodified and regenerates the CSV, Excel and JSON files and the page metadata. The World Bank updates the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

The Pink Sheet price is a widely cited reference for the physical market. A few provider-specific points matter when using this series.

• Release latency. The World Bank publishes the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month, with the average of the month just ended. Eco3min refreshes the file after each release. The series is not a real-time price.
• Monthly average vs futures spot. This series is a monthly average. It will differ from any single exchange settlement, and a monthly average necessarily understates intra-month peaks.
• Revisions. Prices are market-derived and are not revised like survey-based macro series, but the World Bank can correct recent months or replace a series, and it lists those changes in the notes of the Pink Sheet workbook.
• Source change on 30 September 2026. Until that date this file reproduced another publisher’s series; the whole history was then rebuilt from the Pink Sheet column, so figures downloaded earlier can differ slightly.
• Alternative sources. CBOT corn futures (CME Group) give daily, contract-specific prices in US cents per bushel. The World Bank compiles its maize quote from commercial price reporters and the US Department of Agriculture.

Common Pitfalls When Using This Series

1. Confusing nominal and real prices. This series is nominal. Comparing an early-1990s reading to a recent one without adjusting for cumulative inflation overstates the real change. Deflating by CPI gives the true purchasing-power move.
2. Reading the monthly average as a market price. Headlines quote exchange futures; this dataset reports the monthly benchmark average. The two diverge most during fast-moving rallies.
3. Unit confusion. This series is in US dollars per metric ton; CBOT corn futures are quoted in US cents per bushel, so comparison requires conversion (1 metric ton ≈ 39.37 bushels).

Historical Regimes

1992–2005: Low and stable. Abundant US supply held the monthly average mostly between $75 and $150 per ton (median about $100), apart from a spike to $204 in May 1996.

2006–2008: Ethanol era and food crisis. The US Renewable Fuel Standard and the 2008 food crisis lifted corn from about $100 per ton in December 2005 to a then-record of about $290 in June 2008.

2010–2012: Drought record. A severe 2012 US Midwest drought pushed the monthly average to a new record of about $330 per ton in July 2012.

2013–2019: Surplus and decline. Record US harvests halved the price to about $160 by September 2014. It then held between $147 and $195 per ton from 2015 to 2019.

2020–2021: Recovery. Strong Chinese demand and pandemic dynamics more than doubled the price, from about $140 per ton in May 2020 to about $310 in May 2021.

2022: Ukraine spike. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a major corn exporter, pushed corn to the highest monthly average in the file, about $350 per ton in April 2022.

2023–2026: Normalisation. Strong US and South American harvests brought the price down to about $170 in August 2024, its lowest since 2020. It stood at about $220 in August 2026.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

Commodity Price Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min commodity price repository: energy, metals, agricultural softs and grains, most of them from the World Bank Pink Sheet.

Explore the Commodity Price Hub

Sources

• World Bank: Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), Monthly Prices, column “Maize” (CC BY 4.0)
• US No. 2 yellow maize export quotations, FOB US Gulf ports, the market basis of the Pink Sheet series

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). Corn Price: Global Monthly Price (1992-2026). Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), CC BY 4.0.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/corn-price-history-dataset/