Sorghum Prices Today

Unlike corn, soybeans, and wheat, grain sorghum does not have a dedicated futures contract. Sorghum is priced in the cash market, typically at a discount to CBOT corn futures, reflecting its lower feed energy value and more limited demand channels. Most sorghum producers use corn futures as a hedging proxy, then manage the basis differential between their local sorghum cash bid and the corn futures price.

Texas and Kansas are the dominant sorghum-producing states, together accounting for roughly 70% of U.S. sorghum acreage. Other significant production areas include Colorado, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. The concentration of production in the Southern Plains means that sorghum pricing is heavily influenced by local and regional factors — drought conditions, feedlot demand in the Texas Panhandle, export loading capacity at Gulf terminals, and the availability of unit train shuttle facilities.

Sorghum cash bids are typically posted by country elevators, feed yards, and export merchandisers. Because sorghum lacks its own futures contract, bid prices can be less transparent and more variable between buyers than corn or wheat. Producers who track multiple bids across their marketing area and compare the corn-sorghum spread at each location often find meaningful pricing differences worth capturing.

Grain sorghum typically trades at a 5% to 15% discount to corn on a per-bushel basis, though this spread can narrow significantly or even invert in certain market conditions. The discount reflects sorghum's slightly lower feed energy value — roughly 95-97% of corn on a metabolizable energy basis for cattle, and 90-95% for poultry and swine. In a $4.50 corn market, sorghum cash bids commonly range from $3.80 to $4.30 per bushel depending on location and buyer.

The sorghum-corn spread narrows when export demand for sorghum is strong, particularly from China. It can also narrow in drought years when Southern Plains sorghum production falls short, tightening local supplies relative to feedlot demand. Conversely, the spread widens in years with large sorghum crops and weak export demand, as the domestic market alone cannot absorb heavy production without price concessions to incentivize substitution in feed rations.

For producers deciding between planting sorghum and corn, the economics depend on more than just the price per bushel. Sorghum requires less water and fewer inputs than corn, resulting in lower production costs per acre. In dryland farming regions across the Southern and Central Plains, the lower cost of production often makes sorghum more profitable despite the lower gross revenue per bushel.

U.S. grain sorghum production ranges from approximately 300 to 400 million bushels annually, a fraction of the 14-15 billion bushel corn crop. This smaller production base means the sorghum market can be moved by relatively small shifts in demand. China has been the most significant export destination for U.S. sorghum in recent years, purchasing 3 to 5 million metric tons annually for use in livestock feed and the distilling industry (baijiu production).

Domestically, sorghum is used primarily in livestock feed, particularly in Southern Plains and western Kansas feedlots where it is locally available at competitive prices. Sorghum has also gained market share in ethanol production, with several plants in Kansas and Texas designed to process grain sorghum alongside corn. The gluten-free food market represents a smaller but growing demand category, as sorghum is naturally gluten-free and increasingly used in flour, snack foods, and brewing.

Sorghum's drought tolerance is its defining agronomic advantage. The crop requires roughly 30% less water than corn to produce a bushel of grain, and its waxy leaf surface and ability to go dormant during brief drought periods make it far more resilient in semiarid environments. As water availability becomes an increasingly critical constraint across the Ogallala Aquifer region, sorghum acreage is expected to remain stable or grow even as irrigated corn acres face pressure from declining water tables.

Sorghum is one of the most underserved commodities in agricultural market data. Major financial platforms like Bloomberg and Reuters focus on futures-traded commodities and give sorghum minimal coverage. Farm-oriented platforms frequently treat sorghum as an afterthought, offering limited or delayed cash pricing compared to corn and soybeans.

CropInsider was built with sorghum producers in mind. The platform provides real-time sorghum cash bids from elevators and merchandisers across the Texas and Kansas production belt, tracks the corn-sorghum price spread to help producers evaluate marketing timing, and monitors export program announcements that can shift sorghum values rapidly. If you grow sorghum, CropInsider delivers the market intelligence that other platforms simply do not provide.