The CME sorghum basis futures contract is up and running, volume is minimal at this stage, just a few trades per day at present. The product is simple, a basis to the corn contract. It’s a 5000bu contract, in USc/bu, the code is MILO and it’s deliverable. It settled at -27.5c/bu last night. Awesome you say, more useless info I can worry about not knowing, well probably.
At least corn and sorghum are both the same bushel weight, this makes the contract size 127t.
Last night Dec corn settled at 522c/bu, Dec sorghum basis settled at -27.5, leaving sorghum at 494.5c/bu or US$194.68/t.
This compares with an Oct FOB value out of NOLA of around US$265 / tonne.
The question is, in reality, does it cost US$70/t to FOB sorghum from, well, somewhere. The sorghum basis contract settles at a 6-12c discount in Kansas for delivery, the further north the higher the discount. Let’s use Wichita as the delivery point, that’s -6c.
Sorghum grade spread differentials will apply, No2 at 14% moisture at evens, and No1 grade at 14% moisture will attract a 1.5c/bu premium. Lets use No2, that’s the US export benchmark anyway. US$194.68 (corn futures less basis), less the 6c/bu discount to Wichita, US$192.49/t.
According to Google it costs about US$55 to US$73 per tonne to FOB sorghum, we’ll call it US$64 for the sake of this exercise. We’ll round sorghum off at US$192. This indicates FOB sorghum is worth about US$256, that’s pretty close, within variation, to the US$265 I see on the cash reports.
Will I report sorghum basis value daily, probably not needed if I’m keeping an eye on the FOB cash price, but it’s just something else to keep half an eye on.

MARS agricultural crop monitoring call the French corn crop 6.5t/ha, down 8% on the five year average. Drought hit early and rains arrived too late. I still think that an 8% reduction due to drought isn’t too bad if you are to benchmark against what happens here in a drought.