Commodities
Agricultural commodities
A commodity is the harvested, traded thing — not the living plant or animal that produced it. This section documents commodities in their own right: what part is harvested, how they are classified and used, what quality attributes matter, and what they are transformed into.
Crop and commodity are not the same thing
AgricultureID models the living crop and the harvested commodity as separate entities, because they behave differently and are described by different evidence. A wheat plant has an agronomy, a growth cycle, diseases, and soil requirements. Wheat grain has a moisture content, a test weight, a grade, a storage behaviour, and a classification code. Conflating the two produces claims that are true of neither.
Every commodity here is anchored to exactly one parent crop or livestock species, and every product is anchored to the commodity it is made from — so the chain from field to traded product is explicit and checkable rather than implied.
How commodities are described
- Classification — commodity class, physical form, the harvested part, and versioned classification codes.
- Use — food, feed, industrial, seed, fibre, oil, beverage, or energy uses, recorded as a controlled vocabulary.
- Quality — the attributes and defects that matter commercially, and the grading standards that apply.
- Pathways — the products, co-products, and by-products a commodity becomes, as explicit typed links.
Limits of this reference
Commodity classification can depend on composition, processing level, intended use, packaging, jurisdiction, and current tariff rules. Codes here are dated reference information, not customs classification advice — confirm with the applicable authority.
AgricultureID does not grade commodities, certify quality, publish prices, or give customs or contractual advice. Grade summaries are dated reference descriptions of published standards, not the standards themselves.
Commodities A–Z
Each entry covers what the commodity is, how it is classified and used, the quality attributes and defects that matter, storage and transport context, and the products it becomes.
81 entries
- Tree nut commodity
Almonds
Almonds are the dried seed of a drupe, traded either in-shell or as shelled kernels. Unlike fresh fruit, the commodity is a dry, storable good: drying to a stable moisture, then hulling and shelling, converts a perishable harvest into something that keeps for a year or more.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Avocados
Avocados are an oil-rich climacteric fruit with a property no other major fruit shares: they will not ripen while they hang on the tree. The tree therefore doubles as the store, and dry matter — a proxy for oil content — is the maturity measure the trade runs on.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Bananas
Bananas are the archetypal engineered fresh-fruit commodity: harvested mature but green, shipped in a refrigerated, ethylene-free state that suspends ripening, then ripened deliberately in rooms at the destination. The green fruit and the yellow fruit are the same lot at two managed stages.
- Cereal grain commodity
Barley Grain
Barley grain is the harvested caryopsis of barley, traded along two very different routes: malting barley, bought on germination and processing behaviour, and feed barley, bought on bulk energy value. The same field can produce either.
- Spice commodity
Black Peppercorns
Black peppercorns are the dried unripe berries of the pepper vine, and the most heavily traded spice in the world. Black and white pepper come from the same berries: what separates them is processing, not species or cultivar.
- Cereal grain commodity
Brown Rice
Brown rice is rice with the hull stripped off but the bran layers and germ still in place. It is a traded commodity in its own right — the intermediate state between paddy and milled rice, and a food grain sold as it is.
- Cereal grain commodity
Buckwheat Grain
Buckwheat grain is the achene of a broadleaf plant, not a grass, and therefore a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal. It is traded, stored, and used as a grain, and its hard three-sided hull must be removed before food use.
- Tree nut commodity
Cashew Nuts
Cashews are traded first as raw cashew nut — the whole nut in its shell — because the shell holds a caustic liquid that makes the kernel inedible until processed. This single fact splits the trade in two: growing regions export the raw nut, and processing regions produce the kernel.
- Root and tuber commodity
Cassava Roots
Cassava roots are the starchy storage roots lifted from the cassava plant. They are bulky, high in water, and deteriorate within days of harvest, so the fresh root is traded over short distances while most of the crop is processed near where it is grown.
- Livestock product commodity
Cattle Hides
Cattle hides are the raw skins recovered as a by-product of beef production and traded as the principal raw material of the leather industry. Their value depends on defects accumulated during the animal’s life and on how promptly the hide is cured after recovery.
- Pulse commodity
Chickpeas
Chickpeas are the dry seed of Cicer arietinum, traded in two market types that behave as separate commodities: small, coloured, thick-coated desi chickpeas, milled into split dal and flour, and large, pale kabuli chickpeas, sold whole and priced by size.
- Beverage crop commodity
Cocoa Beans
Cocoa beans are traded fermented and dried, never fresh. Fermentation is not a preservation step but the process that creates chocolate flavour precursors — an unfermented cocoa bean cannot be made into chocolate, which makes the farm-level ferment part of the commodity itself.
- Beverage crop commodity
Coffee Cherries
Coffee cherries are the fresh fruit picked from the coffee tree — a perishable commodity with a life measured in hours. They must reach processing the same day, because the sugary pulp begins fermenting immediately and defects formed here follow the coffee to the cup.
- Fibre commodity
Cotton Lint
Cotton lint is the ginned fibre: the cotton commodity that is actually traded, shipped, and spun. It is baled at the gin and bought against a classing description covering staple length, micronaire, strength, uniformity, colour, and leaf.
- Oilseed commodity
Cottonseed
Cottonseed is the seed separated from lint when seed cotton is ginned. It arises as a co-product of a fibre crop yet is traded in its own right as an oilseed and as a livestock feed, and gossypol — a compound native to the seed — governs where it can be used.
- Pulse commodity
Cowpeas
Cowpeas are the dry seed of Vigna unguiculata, a pulse of first importance in West Africa. Storage, not production, defines the commodity: bruchid beetles can destroy a stored crop, and managing them shapes when and how cowpeas are sold.
- Fresh vegetable commodity
Cucumbers
Cucumbers are the immature fruit of the cucumber vine, harvested deliberately before maturity because a fully mature cucumber is inedible. Non-climacteric and chilling-sensitive, they are among the fastest-dehydrating fresh commodities in the trade.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Dates
Dates are the fruit of the date palm, traded at defined ripening stages that range from crisp and fresh to fully soft and sugar-dense. The commodity straddles the fresh and dried categories: the ripest stages are naturally preserved by their own sugar concentration.
- Spice commodity
Dried Chillies
Dried chillies are the ripe fruits of pungent Capsicum, dried whole and traded as a spice. Drying is what turns a perishable fruit into a storable commodity — and doing it badly is the origin of the mould and mycotoxin problems that follow this commodity through the chain.
- Other agricultural commodity
Dried Tobacco Leaf
Dried tobacco leaf is cured tobacco leaf as traded between growers, leaf merchants, and manufacturers. It is classified by curing method and stalk position, graded on colour, maturity, and body, and handled at a moisture condition that keeps it pliable without moulding.
- Pulse commodity
Dry Beans
Dry beans are the mature seed of the common bean, harvested dry and traded by market class. Navy, pinto, kidney, black, and the other classes are one species commercially divided by colour, size, and shape — and they are not substitutes for one another.
- Vegetable commodity
Dry Bulb Onions
Dry bulb onions are the lifted, cured bulbs of the onion plant. Curing — drying the necks and setting the outer skins after lifting — is what separates this commodity from a merely harvested vegetable: it is the step that makes onions storable and tradeable over months rather than days.
- Pulse commodity
Dry Peas
Dry peas are the mature seed of Pisum sativum, harvested dry rather than green. Traded chiefly as yellow and green types, they serve food, feed, and — increasingly — protein fractionation, which has changed what the market values in a pea.
- Cereal grain commodity
Durum Wheat Grain
Durum wheat grain is the harvested caryopsis of Triticum durum, a different species from common wheat and traded as its own commodity. Its hard, vitreous kernels are milled into semolina for pasta rather than into bread flour.
- Fibre commodity
Flax Fibre
Flax fibre is the bast fibre of the flax stem, freed from the woody core by retting and separated by scutching. It is the fibre of linen, and it comes from fibre-type flax — a different crop type from the linseed grown for its oilseed.
- Oilseed commodity
Flaxseed
Flaxseed, also called linseed, is the seed of Linum usitatissimum, crushed principally for an oil that dries by oxidation. The two names are not separate commodities: the seed is generally called flaxseed in food markets and linseed in industrial ones.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Fresh Apples
Fresh apples are the harvested pome fruit traded as a perishable commodity. Because apples are climacteric they can be picked mature and held in cooled or controlled-atmosphere rooms for months, which makes picking maturity and storage regime the decisive commercial variables.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Fresh Blueberries
Fresh blueberries are individually harvested berries traded in retail punnets. Sugar does not increase after picking, so harvest maturity fixes eating quality, while firmness, the waxy bloom, and rapid cooling determine whether the lot survives to market.
- Fresh vegetable commodity
Fresh Broccoli
Fresh broccoli is the cut head of immature flower buds of the broccoli plant. It respires faster than almost any commodity in the produce trade, and that single fact — a head racing to open into flowers it can no longer feed — dictates the icing, hydrocooling, and speed that surround it.
- Fresh vegetable commodity
Fresh Carrots
Fresh carrots are the lifted, topped, and washed taproots of the carrot plant. A robust root by fresh-produce standards, the carrot nevertheless has two commercially decisive vulnerabilities: it dehydrates readily once topped, and it turns bitter when exposed to ethylene.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Fresh Lemons
Fresh lemons are an acid citrus fruit bought for juice acidity and rind oil rather than sweetness. They are non-climacteric, store better than any other major citrus, and are picked on size and rind condition, which lets the trade supply the market almost year-round.
- Fresh vegetable commodity
Fresh Lettuce
Fresh lettuce is the cut head or leaf rosette of the lettuce plant, and it is among the most perishable commodities in the produce trade. Nothing about it improves after cutting: the entire commercial task is to remove field heat fast and never let the temperature rise again.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Fresh Mangoes
Fresh mangoes are the harvested tropical drupe, traded as a climacteric fruit picked mature but firm and ripened downstream. Chilling sensitivity, latex sap burn, and mandatory quarantine treatments for many export routes shape how the commodity is handled.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Fresh Oranges
Fresh oranges are the harvested citrus fruit, traded either for the fresh counter or for juicing. They are non-climacteric and never sweeten after picking, and the trade splits sharply between fresh-market fruit graded on appearance and processing fruit valued only for its juice.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Fresh Pineapples
Fresh pineapples are non-climacteric: the fruit is as sweet as it will ever be at the moment it is cut, and there is no ripening step anywhere downstream. Shell colour deceives, chilling injury is the dominant transit disorder, and harvest timing carries the entire commercial burden.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Fresh Strawberries
Fresh strawberries are among the most perishable commodities in trade: non-climacteric, unprotected by any rind, and picked fully ripe. Precooling within hours and an unbroken cold chain are not optimisations but the condition of the fruit existing as a commodity at all.
- Fresh vegetable commodity
Fresh Sweetcorn
Fresh sweetcorn is the immature ear of the sweetcorn plant, picked at milk stage while the kernels are still sugary and tender. Its sugars begin converting to starch as soon as the ear is snapped, which is why sweetcorn is cooled faster and more aggressively than almost anything else in the vegetable trade.
- Fresh vegetable commodity
Fresh Tomatoes
Fresh tomatoes are the harvested fruit of the tomato plant, traded as a perishable fresh-market commodity. Because the fruit is climacteric, it can be picked before full colour and ripened afterwards — and because it is chilling-sensitive, it cannot simply be held as cold as most vegetables.
- Vegetable commodity
Garlic Bulbs
Garlic bulbs are the lifted and cured heads of the garlic plant, each made up of separate cloves inside common papery wrappers. Like onions, garlic is cured after lifting to dry the neck and set the wrappers — and it is the intactness of those wrappers that carries the bulb through months of trade.
- Livestock product commodity
Goat Milk
Goat milk is the untreated milk of dairy goats, collected chilled and used for cheese, fluid milk, and fermented products. Globally it is a subsistence and smallholder staple as much as a commercial commodity, and it is bought on the same compositional and hygiene logic as other raw milks.
- Spice commodity
Green Cardamom
Green cardamom is the dried capsule of the cardamom plant, traded whole with its seeds sealed inside. The commodity is graded above all on the green of its husk — a colour that curing is designed to preserve and that the capsule starts losing the moment it is dry.
- Beverage crop commodity
Green Coffee
Green coffee is the dried, hulled coffee seed: the form in which coffee crosses borders, sits in warehouses, and is priced on world markets. It is a storable commodity graded by origin, screen size, defect count, and cup quality.
- Oilseed commodity
Groundnuts
Groundnuts, also called peanuts, are the harvested pods and kernels of Arachis hypogaea, traded in shell or shelled for edible use and for crushing. Because the pod matures in the soil, groundnuts carry a well-documented aflatoxin risk that governs how the commodity is handled.
- Tree nut commodity
Hazelnuts
Hazelnuts are a true nut whose trade is dominated by a single industrial buyer type: confectionery. That demand shapes the commodity around kernel attributes — roundness, size uniformity, and how cleanly the skin comes off after roasting — rather than around appearance in the shell.
- Fresh vegetable commodity
Head Cabbage
Head cabbage is the compact leafy head of the cabbage plant, cut at maturity and traded with a few wrapper leaves left on. Denser and more self-protecting than any other leafy vegetable, it is the one leafy commodity that genuinely stores for months.
- Fibre commodity
Hemp Fibre
Hemp fibre is the bast fibre of the industrial hemp stem, long and strong and traditionally used for cordage, sacking, and coarse textiles. Its cultivation is legally restricted and the rules differ by jurisdiction, which shapes where and how the commodity is supplied.
- Livestock product commodity
Hen Eggs
Hen eggs are the intact shell eggs collected from laying flocks and traded as table eggs or as material for further processing. They are unusual among commodities in being sold as discrete, individually fragile units, and they are graded on two separate axes: weight and quality.
- Fibre commodity
Jute Fibre
Jute is a long bast fibre stripped by hand from water-retted stems, produced overwhelmingly in the Ganges–Brahmaputra delta. Traded as raw jute in bales and graded on colour, strength, and root content, it is the fibre of sacking, hessian, and carpet backing.
- Pulse commodity
Lentils
Lentils are the flat, lens-shaped dry seed of Lens culinaris, traded by cotyledon colour and seed size. Whether a lot is sold whole with its coat on or dehulled and split into a fast-cooking product is the decision that defines the market it enters.
- Cereal grain commodity
Maize Grain
Maize grain is the shelled kernel of the maize crop and one of the largest cereal commodities by volume. Most of it is used for feed and industrial processing rather than eaten directly, and it is graded on moisture, damage, and broken kernels.
- Cereal grain commodity
Milled Rice
Milled rice is white rice: the endosperm left after the hull, bran, and germ have been removed. It is the form in which rice reaches most consumers and dominates international rice trade.
- Cereal grain commodity
Millet Grain
Millet grain covers several small-seeded cereals traded under one commercial name. Pearl, finger, proso, and foxtail millets are different species with different grain, and a lot is only meaningfully specified once the millet is named.
- Cereal grain commodity
Oat Grain
Oat grain is the harvested oat caryopsis, traded with its loose hull still on. Because the hull is a large share of the delivered weight and is removed before food use, oats are bought on what will be left after dehulling.
- Pulse commodity
Pigeon Peas
Pigeon peas are the dry seed of Cajanus cajan, traded overwhelmingly as a milling raw material. Almost all of the crop is dehulled and split into toor dal, and the difficulty of that milling — the seed coat clings — is the commodity’s defining commercial fact.
- Tree nut commodity
Pistachios
Pistachios are traded largely in-shell, and are unique in being valued for a shell that splits open naturally at maturity. That same split is a defect gateway: it exposes the kernel, and aflatoxin contamination is a documented and closely regulated hazard for the commodity.
- Oilseed commodity
Rapeseed
Rapeseed is the harvested seed of oilseed rape, crushed for oil and meal. Modern trade is dominated by types bred low in erucic acid and glucosinolates — marketed as canola in some jurisdictions and as double-low or 00 rapeseed in others.
- Livestock product commodity
Raw Cow Milk
Raw cow milk is the untreated liquid obtained at milking from dairy cattle, collected as a bulk commodity and moved chilled to a processor. It is bought on compositional and hygiene criteria rather than on volume alone, and it is the feedstock from which the whole dairy chain is built.
- Livestock product commodity
Raw Wool
Raw wool is the greasy fleece as shorn from sheep, baled and traded before any washing. It is bought on measured fibre attributes — diameter above all, then staple length and strength, yield after scouring, and vegetable matter — rather than on weight alone.
- Cereal grain commodity
Rice Paddy
Rice paddy is rice as it comes off the field: the grain still enclosed in its hull. It is the first of three separately traded rice commodities, and the form in which rice is dried and stored before milling.
- Cereal grain commodity
Rye Grain
Rye grain is the harvested caryopsis of rye, milled mainly into rye flour for dense breads and used for feed and distilling. Falling number and ergot are the two attributes that most often decide where a lot goes.
- Oilseed commodity
Safflower Seed
Safflower seed is the harvested achene of Carthamus tinctorius, a minor oilseed traded in high-linoleic and high-oleic types. Its thick hull and modest oil content keep it a niche crush, while bird food is a substantial outlet in its own right.
- Fibre commodity
Seed Cotton
Seed cotton is cotton as it leaves the field: lint and seed together, still joined, as harvested from the opened boll. It is an intermediate commodity that exists only between picking and ginning, where it is separated into the two commodities that are actually traded.
- Oilseed commodity
Sesame Seed
Sesame seed is the small, flat seed of Sesamum indicum, traded natural or hulled and sorted by colour. Unusually for an oilseed, most of the trade is food-grade rather than commodity crushing, so purity, colour, and cleanliness dominate its specifications.
- Livestock product commodity
Sheep Milk
Sheep milk is the untreated milk of dairy ewes, collected chilled and destined almost entirely for cheesemaking. It is a specialist commodity: volumes per animal are small, supply is markedly seasonal, and its high solids content is the reason processors want it.
- Cereal grain commodity
Sorghum Grain
Sorghum grain is the harvested caryopsis of grain sorghum, traded as a feed grain in the export market and eaten as a staple across the semi-arid tropics. Tannin content and grain colour are its distinctive trade descriptors.
- Oilseed commodity
Soybeans
Soybeans are the harvested seed of the soybean plant, traded in bulk as the world’s dominant oilseed. Most of the crop is crushed, splitting one commodity into two deliberate outputs — protein meal and oil — with hulls removed as a residual stream.
- Sugar crop commodity
Sugar Beet
Sugar beet as a commodity is the topped root delivered to a processing factory during its campaign. It is bought on weight, sugar content, and the impurities that block crystallisation, with soil tare deducted, and it is clamped only briefly because a stored beet keeps losing sugar.
- Sugar crop commodity
Sugarcane
Sugarcane as a commodity is the cut stalk delivered to a mill for crushing. Sucrose begins to be lost as soon as the cane is cut, so cane is not stored: the trade is organised around getting stalks from field to crusher quickly, and payment is made on weight and sucrose together.
- Oilseed commodity
Sunflower Seed
Sunflower seed is the harvested achene of the sunflower, traded in two commercially distinct streams: small, dark oilseed types grown for crushing, and larger striped confectionery types grown for snack and bird-food markets.
- Fresh vegetable commodity
Sweet Peppers
Sweet peppers are the harvested fruit of non-pungent Capsicum, traded green or in full colour. Being non-climacteric, a pepper picked green stays essentially green — colour has to be earned on the plant — and being chilling-sensitive, it cannot be held as cold as the vegetables it ships beside.
- Root and tuber commodity
Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are the starchy storage roots of Ipomoea batatas, traded fresh for food use. They are cured after lifting to heal harvest wounds and set the fragile skin, and — unlike potatoes — they are chilling-sensitive and cannot be held cold.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Table Grapes
Table grapes are bunches of fresh grape berries traded for eating. They are non-climacteric, so they never sweeten after cutting, and the bunch — berries plus its green stem framework — must arrive intact, which makes harvest timing and an unbroken cold chain the whole commercial game.
- Beverage crop commodity
Tea Leaf
Tea leaf is the fresh shoot plucked from the tea bush: a highly perishable commodity that must reach the factory within hours. What is plucked — bud and two leaves, or something coarser — sets a ceiling on the made tea that no factory can raise.
- Cereal grain commodity
Teff Grain
Teff grain is the caryopsis of an Ethiopian cereal and the smallest cultivated grain in the world. Its size means it is milled whole rather than fractionated, and it is the base of injera, the staple bread of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
- Cereal grain commodity
Triticale Grain
Triticale grain is the caryopsis of a man-made wheat-rye hybrid, traded almost entirely as a feed grain. It is a real cereal commodity with a thin market and few dedicated standards, and it is usually priced against feed wheat.
- Spice commodity
Vanilla Beans
Vanilla beans are the cured pods of the vanilla orchid. Picked green they have no flavour and no scent at all: the vanilla is created entirely by a months-long curing process, which is why this is among the most labour-intensive and highest-priced commodities in agriculture.
- Tree nut commodity
Walnuts
Walnuts are traded in-shell or as shelled halves and pieces, and are graded heavily on kernel colour — light kernels command a premium. Their high oil content makes rancidity, not spoilage, the practical limit on the commodity's life.
- Root and tuber commodity
Ware Potatoes
Ware potatoes are potato tubers lifted and traded for table consumption, as distinct from certified seed potatoes and from lots contracted to processors. They are sold on size, skin finish, and freedom from defects, and they remain living tissue throughout storage.
- Cereal grain commodity
Wheat Grain
Wheat grain is the harvested caryopsis of common wheat (Triticum aestivum), traded as a bulk cereal commodity and milled mainly into flour. It is classified commercially by class, moisture, protein, and soundness rather than by the agronomy of the growing crop.
- Fresh fruit commodity
Wine Grapes
Wine grapes are grapes harvested for fermentation rather than for eating. They are bought on composition — sugar, acidity, pH, and phenolic ripeness — not on appearance, and the lot has hours rather than weeks to reach the winery intact.
- Root and tuber commodity
Yams
Yams are the large tubers of Dioscorea species, traded fresh as a food staple, principally in West Africa. Unlike most root crops, the yam tuber has a true dormancy, which — with curing and ventilated barn storage — gives it a keeping life measured in months.
Sources
This article draws on the following authoritative sources. See our sources & methodology for how they are selected.
- [1]FAO — Food and Agriculture Organization (opens in a new tab)Authoritative
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Cited for: Commodity definitions and agricultural product classification
- Type:
- Intergovernmental organization
- Jurisdiction:
- Global
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-12
- [2]FAOSTAT — FAO statistical database (opens in a new tab)Authoritative
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Cited for: Commodity item classification and coverage
- Type:
- Intergovernmental organization
- Jurisdiction:
- Global
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-12
- [3]USDA — U.S. Department of Agriculture (opens in a new tab)Authoritative
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Cited for: Commodity naming and grading context
- Type:
- Government agency
- Jurisdiction:
- United States
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-12