Corn basis

What local corn is worth against the board, by state and district · USDA AMS · Aug 20

What it costs to feed in the wrong place Derived

Aug 20
Dearest feeding state
+50
Texas · 3 bids · cents a bushel
Cheapest feeding state
−58
South Dakota · 5 bids · cents a bushel
The gap
108¢
a bushel, on the same day and the same contract
At 55 bu a head
$59
corn cost difference, per finished steer
Corn in Texas is running 108 cents a bushel over South Dakota — on the same day, against the same contract. Both figures are USDA elevator bids, so the gap is arithmetic on two published numbers and nothing is assumed to produce it. The board price is identical for both; every cent of this is local.
The per-head figure rests on one number USDA does not publish. A finished steer eats roughly 55 bushels of corn, which is stated here rather than buried in the arithmetic: 108¢ × 55 bu = $59 a head. Change the bushels and the answer changes proportionally. This is a cost difference, not a margin — it says nothing about what either feeder earns.

What basis is, and why it is the number that differs

Corn has one price on the board; what your elevator bids is different, and that gap is the basis. Negative means corn is cheaper than the board where you are. Positive means someone local is bidding it up.
Why there is no futures price on this page

Basis is the only genuinely local part of a corn price — it moves with local supply, freight and storage rather than with the national crop. A negative basis is a surplus with nowhere to go; a positive one is what feed demand looks like.

USDA publishes the gap and the contract it is quoted against, but not the board price itself, so no futures price appears anywhere on this page.

Corn basis by state USDA

Cents a bushel · cheapest first
10 of 22 states sit at or above the 80th percentile of their own year, only 3 at or below the 20th — Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas. Corn is bid up against the board almost everywhere at once.
StateMedianRange todayBidsDistrictsYear rangePercentileReported
North Dakota−60−75 to −5055−80 to −5066%Aug 20
South Dakotacattle feeding state−58−60 to −2655−73 to −3059%Aug 20
Minnesota−3511−52 to −2269%Aug 20
Kansascattle feeding state−20−40 to +10119−53 to −2093%Aug 20
Iowacattle feeding state−18−30 to −1276−40 to −1082%Aug 20
Nebraskacattle feeding state−15−42 to +3577−50 to −594%Aug 20
Missouri−13−45 to +171010−39 to 057%Aug 20
Oklahoma−13−35 to +2063−40 to −1395%Aug 20
Illinois−5−15 to +221212−25 to +1146%Aug 20
Ohio0−12 to +1044−38 to +1339%Aug 20
Kentucky0−18 to +90107−12 to +359%Aug 20
Tennessee0−10 to +1576−20 to +3513%Aug 20
Indiana+10−18 to +90119−25 to +2079%Aug 20
Coloradocattle feeding state+18−20 to +9544−33 to +3393%Aug 20
Arkansas+25+19 to +2631−20 to +4647%Aug 20
Wyoming+2511−42 to +3094%Aug 20
Virginia+350 to +12555−3 to +5584%Aug 20
Texascattle feeding state+50+50 to +7533+50 to +700%Aug 20
North Carolina+65+10 to +95185+15 to +7095%Aug 20
Maryland+70+60 to +9044+20 to +7098%Jun 23stale
South Carolina+80+40 to +9052−5 to +9053%Aug 20
Pennsylvania+138+80 to +14033+35 to +14090%Aug 18
Green is cheaper feed, red is dearer — colour is read from the buyer’s side here, the opposite of what it means to the farmer selling. A district is a distribution, not a number.
Reading the table, and what is excluded

States are sorted from the biggest discount to the board to the biggest premium. Each carries its own report date— some file daily, some weekly, and a few have gone quiet. The percentile says where today sits in that state’s own last 12 months, so a low number means corn is unusually cheap there by its own standards. Each state is measured only against itself, so this ranks how unusual a basis is, never how high.

This desk is for people who buy corn rather than sell it, which is why green marks a discount to the board. USDA files each elevator bid separately but publishes no elevator name, so where several bids land in one district the median is shown with the day’s range beside it — taking any single row would be an arbitrary pick rendered as a fact. Where a state shows no range, it filed one bid per district that day.

Source: USDA AMS daily grain bid reports, current_flag=Yes bids only. Country elevator series only — Gulf export, barge, port and grain-exchange quotes are different markets and are excluded rather than pooled. Cash grain prices in dollars a bushel are on the grain desk.

Inside the cattle-feeding states USDA

By reporting district
A state median hides a lot: corn can be 60 cents apart across one state. These are the districts inside the states where cattle are fed.
StateDistrictBasisBidsRangeContractReported
South DakotaCentral−601September (U)Aug 20
North Central−601September (U)Aug 20
Northeast−581September (U)Aug 20
East Central−351September (U)Aug 20
Southeast−261September (U)Aug 20
KansasCentral−402September (U)Aug 20
Southeast−351December (Z)Aug 20
West−301September (U)Aug 20
North−301September (U)Aug 20
East−151September (U)Aug 20
Northeast−101September (U)Aug 20
Northwest−51September (U)Aug 20
South−52−20 to +10September (U)Aug 20
Southwest+51September (U)Aug 20
IowaNortheast−301September (U)Aug 20
Southeast−281September (U)Aug 20
North Central−251September (U)Aug 20
South Central−181September (U)Aug 20
Northwest−151September (U)Aug 20
Southwest−152−17 to −12September (U)Aug 20
NebraskaNortheast−421September (U)Aug 20
East−231September (U)Aug 20
South−151September (U)Aug 20
Southeast−151September (U)Aug 20
Central−81September (U)Aug 20
Southwest−21September (U)Aug 20
Northwest+351September (U)Aug 20
ColoradoSoutheast−201September (U)Aug 20
East+51September (U)Aug 20
Northeast+301September (U)Aug 20
North Central+951September (U)Aug 20
TexasCentral Panhandle+501September (U)Aug 20
South Panhandle+501September (U)Aug 20
North Panhandle+751September (U)Aug 20
The contract column is the futures month each bid is quoted against, as USDA names it. Bids set against different months are not comparable with each other, which is why the column is shown rather than assumed.