CME Group Launches Agriculture Index Benchmark

CME Group Launches Agriculture Index on 9 July 2026

On 9 July 2026, Chicago, United States — international derivatives marketplaceCME Groupannounced the launch of its Agriculture Index, a broad price benchmark designed to track the combined performance of five sectors that are critical to the global agricultural economy.

The index is updated monthly and integrates futures prices for grains, oilseeds, livestock, dairy and lumber. These components enable the benchmark to comprehensively track structural changes in supply chains, shifts in industrial demand and changes in consumer habits — all of which affect the cost of global agricultural products.

Five Core Components of the Agriculture Index

Covered Sectors and Tracking Objective

The CME Group Agriculture Index brings futures prices from the following five sectors onto a unified platform:

• Grains: covering futures on major food crops such as corn and wheat;

• Oilseeds: covering oilseed futures such as soybeans;

• Livestock: covering livestock futures such as live cattle and lean hogs;

• Dairy: covering dairy futures such as cheese and milk powder;

• Lumber: covering lumber futures prices.

The five-sector structure enables the index to move beyond a single-commodity dimension and reflect overall cost trends in the agricultural economy as well as changes in global farm product pricing, providing producers, traders and analysts with a more macro-level market perspective than a single futures contract.

Methodology

The index methodology is designed to fairly reflect commodity costs through two core technical treatments:

• Eliminating price differences between different delivery months of futures contracts to avoid term-structure distortions in the composite reading;

• Applying appropriate weightings to different markets to ensure that each sector’s contribution to the index matches its economic importance.

“Agriculture does not affect price movements in one commodity at a time — and a benchmark tracking agriculture should not do so either. By bringing together futures prices from five sectors on one platform, the CME Group Agriculture Index gives producers, traders and analysts a more complete view of the agricultural economy and where it is heading.”

(Source: CME Group, Press Release “CME Group's New Agriculture Index Delivers Unified Price Benchmark”, published on 2026-07-09, index description and John Ricci quote section.)

Comparison Between the Agriculture Index and Ag Economy Barometer

The Agriculture Index complements thePurdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer. The Barometer is a national monthly indicator that surveys 400 agricultural producers each month to measure their sentiment and outlook for the agricultural economy. The index focuses on objective price data, while the Barometer focuses on subjective market expectations; together, they can provide decision-makers with a more complete picture of the agricultural economy.

According to Purdue University’s June 2026 Barometer report, 47% of respondents listed high input costs as their biggest concern, while 23% were concerned about low crop and livestock prices. The Current Conditions Index was 26 points lower than in December 2025. The CME Group Agriculture Index will quantify how these cost pressures are reflected across the five major sectors through futures prices.

(Sources: Purdue University, Ag Economy Barometer Report, published in 2026-06, June 2026 survey data; CME Group, Press Release, published on 2026-07-09, Barometer supplementary explanation section.)

Market Background to the Index Launch

Global agricultural markets are facing price volatility driven by multiple overlapping factors, including supply chain restructuring, shifts in industrial demand and changes in consumer habits. Traditional agricultural benchmarks usually focus on a single commodity or sector, making it difficult to reflect cross-category cost linkages. As a leading global agricultural derivatives marketplace, CME Group has launched this composite index to fill the gap for a unified cross-sector price benchmark.

Market analysts noted that a unified agricultural price benchmark may support risk management, asset allocation and macro research. Future attention will focus on the degree of market adoption of the index and whether CME Group will launch related derivatives products based on the benchmark.

Questions Related to the CME Group Agriculture Index