Soybeans Price History: Monthly Global Price Since 1992

Soybeans are the world’s dominant oilseed, crushed into protein meal for animal feed and into oil for food and biodiesel. This dataset reproduces the World Bank Pink Sheet soybean price, a monthly average in US dollars per metric ton since 1992. It is a physical quote for US-origin beans: FOB US Gulf since January 2025, CIF Rotterdam from December 2007 to December 2024. Brazil and the United States dominate production and exports, while China is by far the largest importer.

Dataset: Soybeans 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 “Soybeans” 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/soybeans-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/soybeans-price.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

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

df.plot(x="date", y="soybeans_price", title="Soybeans Price", legend=False)

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

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

head(df)
summary(df$soybeans_price)

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

Methodology

The World Bank reports the soybean price in US dollars per metric ton for US-origin soybeans. The delivery basis changed over time:

• From January 2025: US soybeans, FOB US Gulf.
• January 2021 to December 2024: US Gulf yellow soybeans No. 2, CIF Rotterdam.
• December 2007 to December 2020: US No. 2 yellow, CIF Rotterdam.
• Before December 2007: US origin, nearest forward shipment.

It is a physical cash price, not the Chicago (CBOT) futures price, so it includes the export basis and, while quoted CIF Rotterdam, freight and insurance to Europe.

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 (median gap of about 13% over the common period, much larger in some months).
• Changes of delivery basis. The quote moved from CIF Rotterdam to FOB US Gulf in January 2025, and its wording changed in December 2007 and January 2021 (see Methodology). A CIF price includes sea freight and insurance, a FOB price does not, so levels on either side of those dates are not strictly like for like. The workbook notes also flag some recent oilseed months as World Bank estimates, replaced later by source data.
• Alternative sources. CBOT soybean futures (CME Group) give daily, contract-specific prices in US cents per bushel. The World Bank compiles its oilseed quotes 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 and basis confusion. This series is in US dollars per metric ton; CBOT soybean futures are quoted in US cents per bushel, so comparison requires conversion (1 metric ton ≈ 36.74 bushels). The Pink Sheet quote is also a physical export price, so it carries a basis over futures, plus freight to Rotterdam from December 2007 to December 2024.

Historical Regimes

1992–2006: Range-bound. Chinese demand for feed and crush grew, but the monthly average stayed between about $180 (July 1999) and about $410 per ton (March 2004).

2007–2008: Food-crisis surge. The broad agricultural boom more than doubled soybeans, from about $310 per ton in January 2007 to a then-record of about $640 in July 2008, before a fall to about $360 in December 2008.

2012: Drought record. The 2012 US Midwest drought pushed soybeans to a new record of about $680 per ton in August 2012.

2013–2019: Decline and trade war. Surpluses and the 2018-2019 US-China trade war (Chinese tariffs on US soybeans) pressured prices, from about $610 per ton in February 2013 to $340 in May 2019, the lowest since 2007.

2020–2022: China rebound and Ukraine. Resurgent Chinese buying and the 2022 supply shock doubled the price, from about $360 per ton in May 2020 to the record of the file, about $740 in June 2022.

2023–2026: Big harvests. Large Brazilian and US crops pulled the price down to about $390 in September 2024. It has since moved between about $400 and $480 per ton, on a FOB US Gulf basis from January 2025.

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 “Soybeans” (CC BY 4.0)
• US soybean physical quotations (FOB US Gulf since January 2025, CIF Rotterdam from December 2007 to December 2024), the market basis of the Pink Sheet series

Dataset Reference

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