Wheat Basis Has Widened by up to 44%

• September 1, 2010
• Paul Neiffer

Kansas State University provides a very good map of basis for most of the major crops over most of a five state region comprising all of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and parts of Texas and Colorado.  These maps on a weekly basis show what the current basis is and how it compares to the three year average.

During 2010, the basis maps for Soybeans show that the average basis has both increased in some areas and decreased in others, but overall  has not moved to much.

The basis maps for corn show that the basis is narrowing in some areas.  At the first part of the year, in some areas the local cash price was 40 cents higher than futures.  That has decreased to about 27 cents while the lowest basis areas remains steady at 84 cents cash price under futures.

Now, wheat basis has shown a dramatic change since the first of the year.  On January 6, cash prices ranged from 29 cents under futures all the way up to $1.14 under futures.  As of August 25, this spread has widened to 35 cents under futures to almost $1.65 under futures.  This represents a 44% increase in basis for the worst areas of these states.

So even though futures may be rallying, this does not always mean the local farmer is getting the benefit of these prices.

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