A futures contract is an agreement priced and entered on an exchange to trade at a specified future time a commodity or other asset with specified attributes (or in the case of cash settlement, an equivalent amount of money). The U.S. exchanges that trade agricultural futures contracts are the Chicago Board of Trade; the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; the Kansas City Board of Trade; the
Minneapolis Grain Exchange; the New York Coffee, Sugar, and Cocoa Exchange; and the New York Cotton Exchange. Trading is conducted either through “open outcry” on the floor of the exchange or electronically. The December corn contract traded on the Chicago Board of Trade, for example, specifies lots of 5,000 bushels for No. 2 yellow corn and a December delivery period. Contracts for major field crops (including corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton), four types of livestock and animal products (live cattle, feeder cattle, live hogs, and pork bellies), and sugar and frozen concentrated orange juice have been traded for years. More recently, futures contracts for rice, boneless beef, and dairy products have been intro