Shrinking yield prospects and a tightening supply outlook seem to be triggering grain trader flashbacks to 2021-23, when corn futures last sustained a run above $6 per bushel.
Is this just a late-summer trip amped up by the market playing mind games with us? Or do we have a legitimate shot at exceeding the 6-handle for the first time in over three years?
In early September, December 2026 corn rocketed near $5.50 per bushel, the highest price for a new-crop contract since July 2023. The rally seemed to come from an explosive cocktail of weather and war: Russia-Ukraine hostilities escalated and surprisingly poor results from a crop tour illustrated the impact of Mother Nature’s extremes — too much heat in the western Corn Belt, too much rain in the east.
The wild summer presages what could be an even wilder fall as traders parse early harvest results and USDA tweaks production and yield forecasts in a series of four updates, the next coming Sept. 11. Farmers are free to dream of greater price upside but also need to be on point for potential market inflection points. Here are a few considerations based on recent history:
It’s rare for the corn market to peak in August. The most recent year this happened was during the severe drought of 2012, when that year’s December contract hit $8.49 on Aug. 10, slumped to $7.05 in late September and expired around $7.19, a decline of $1.30, or 15%.
Things were different in 2010-12. Those years were at the tail end of a multi-year commodity market bull cycle that in 2008 saw West Texas Intermediate crude oil soar near $150 per barrel as the economy was collapsing into the Great Recession. War wasn’t a factor. In 2011, December futures also posted an August peak, at $7.79. But the post-peak decline was more severe, with the contract expiring at $5.80, a drop of 26%.
There are similarities and differences today versus five years ago. Grain prices soared after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. This year, we still have Vladimir Putin’s old war, along with President Donald Trump’s “new” war with Iran. Both have caused major disruptions to energy, fertilizer and other markets that will persist into 2027. That’s likely to keep bears bunkered down for the time being and provide ample fodder for speculative bulls.
Another factoid from 2022: U.S. corn production tumbled 9% to 13.7 billion bushels, the second-smallest harvest in the past decade. A similar decline in 2026 would result in a roughly 15.5 billion-bushel harvest, down sharply from last year’s record but still historically high. (USDA currently estimates 2026 production at just over 16 billion bushels.)
The combination of war disruptions and a smaller harvest in 2022 kept corn futures above $6 for all but a couple of months. Prices stayed above $6 until late April 2023 but then took a mostly uninterrupted downturn that bottomed around $3.92 in August 2025. We haven’t seen $6-plus since June 2023.
None of this means the corn market will follow a similar path in 2026-27. There are too many uncertainties and unknowns swirling about. Indeed, the recent grain rally has potential to get “even more interesting before it’s all said and done,” said Luke Williams, ag risk management adviser at Advance Trading, in late August.
August is part of the typical time frame when corn sets a marketing-year low, Williams noted. “But not this year,” he said. “This year, we get to embrace something positive before harvest starts.”
Still, it’s not in farmers’ best interest to sit on their hands and wait for even higher prices. Williams advised farmers to be proactive with their marketing strategies and use tools such as put and call options to not only set price floors and put themselves in position to capitalize if prices rise further, but also protect themselves if the bottom falls out.
“This rally may make it difficult to pull the trigger selling because we get very emotional about it,” Williams said. “That’s normal. But try your best to look ahead and remember the years that have reversed course. We still have a job to do as responsible risk managers.”