Corn (Maize)

What it is

Corn (also called maize; Zea mays) is the world's most produced grain by volume, with global output exceeding 1.2 billion tonnes per year. Unlike wheat, corn is primarily used for animal feed, roughly 60 percent of global use, with direct human food consumption concentrated in Mexico, Central America, and sub-Saharan Africa. The United States and Brazil are the largest exporters; China is the largest single consumer and increasingly a swing importer. A distinct major use is US ethanol production, which absorbs roughly 5.6 billion bushels of the US crop annually, making global corn prices sensitive to US fuel policy and oil market conditions. World corn trade is far less globalised than wheat trade: a larger share is consumed in the country where it is grown, and only about 180 to 200 million tonnes cross borders each year.

History

Corn was domesticated roughly 9,000 years ago from the wild grass teosinte in southern Mexico. Spanish colonizers spread it to Europe and Africa in the 16th century, and it became a staple across both regions within two centuries. US hybridisation programs in the 1920s to 1940s multiplied yields, and post-World War II nitrogen fertilizer use sustained the productivity surge. Brazil's "safrinha" double-cropping system, a second corn crop grown on the same land after soybeans are harvested, transformed the country from a minor producer into the world's second-largest exporter across the 1990s and 2000s. China swung to significant net imports in 2020/21, as hog-herd rebuilding after African swine fever drove unprecedented feed demand, permanently reshaping global trade flows. The 2007/08 food price crisis, during which corn futures tripled in 18 months, brought the ethanol-versus-food tension into acute political focus and accelerated investment in second-generation biofuels.

Current state

As of early July 2026, the global corn market is tightening. USDA's June 2026 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates project global corn ending stocks for 2026/27 at 277.5 million tonnes, down 19.4 million tonnes from the prior year and the lowest level since 2013/14 (see USDA June WASDE puts global corn stocks at their lowest level since 2013 as consumption outpaces production). Global consumption, forecast at 1,608 million tonnes, is projected to exceed output for the 2026/27 marketing year. In the United States, the 2026/27 corn crop is forecast at 16.0 billion bushels, 6 percent below the record 2025/26 harvest; US corn used for ethanol is unchanged at 5.6 billion bushels. Brazil is projected to post a record corn harvest in 2026/27, with exports expanding by 1 million tonnes despite rising domestic ethanol demand. China posted another record harvest in 2026, accumulating additional strategic reserves and moderating import buying. The FAO's July 2026 Cereal Supply and Demand Brief revised global coarse grain production, of which maize is roughly three-quarters, marginally upward to 1,624 million tonnes on favorable conditions in Argentina, Brazil, and Zambia.

Relationships

Corn competes for field acreage with soy across the US Corn Belt and in Brazil's Mato Grosso state, where the relative price of each crop at planting time drives allocation. Corn and wheat compete as animal feed in China, with elevated wheat prices steering feed mills toward corn and vice versa. Corn price movements feed into the Wheat climbs a fourth straight month as cereals defy a stable headline index FAO Cereal Price Index, which sets humanitarian response thresholds for import-dependent nations in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. The simultaneous draw-down of US wheat stocks from Great Plains drought (see US winter wheat harvest forecast at 1.048 billion bushels, smallest since 1965, as Plains drought cuts hard red winter crop 36%) has raised the feed-grain complex broadly, with both grains tightening global supply at the same time.

What to watch

US Corn Belt weather through July and August 2026 will determine whether the 16-billion-bushel forecast holds; a heat or drought event during the pollination window, typically mid-July, is the highest-probability downside. Brazil's safrinha harvest result, usually confirmed by August, sets the floor for South American export supply through the second half of the marketing year. Any signal of renewed Chinese import buying would quickly tighten global trade given China's scale. In the United States, any change to Renewable Fuel Standard blend mandates would shift the ethanol draw on corn, the single largest domestic use. The global corn stocks-to-use ratio is on a trajectory that, if sustained, approaches levels historically associated with price spikes, making the 2026/27 crop season a critical inflection point.