Crop basis (cash price minus futures price) plays a big part in crop price.  Basis gets more attention at harvest and following harvest as the storage decision is made and inventory plans unfold.

Historically, basis has been much less volatile than futures prices (with a few exceptions) and is a function of local supply and demand.   Iowa Farm Bureau provides weekly basis maps on the IFBF website that show the current corn and soybean basis and the change from week to week.  This is possible because of the teamwork of IFBF staff.  Ray Johnson (Data Analyst) gathers the information and Tim Johnson (Sr. Research and Policy Analyst) takes the data and converts it to a map format.  

The maps are weekly snapshots of corn and soybean basis levels.  These maps are generated using almost 1,400 crop buying locations (elevators, processors, etc.).   The map software is set so each square mile in that state looks at the closest 12 crop buying locations to estimate the basis.

All Iowa Farm Bureau members have weekly access to this information on the IFBF website (www.iowafarmbureau.com, Farmer Resources, Markets/Farm Financials, Market and Ag Information).  

A shortcut to view the corn and soybean maps is https://tinyurl.com/ifbfmaps

A short 5-minute video explaining the maps is at https://tinyurl.com/4iowamaps