Revista de Economia e Agronegócio - REA ISSN impresso: 1679-1614 ISSN online: 2526-5539 Vol. 16 | N. 3 | 2018 EDITORIAL ___________________________________________________ CORN MARKET: BIG CHANGES, NEW PERSPECTIVES, AND FRESH RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES Fabio Mattos* * University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Department of Agricultural Economics, Lincoln, NE, USA. E-mail: fmattos@unl.edu In the late 1990’s, the world population was 6 billion. The search engine Google had just been incorporated as a private company, the Bluetooth technology had just been announced, and Windows 98 had just been released by Microsoft. In financial markets, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had never traded above 10,000 points and crude oil prices were below $20/barrel. Today, in 2018, about 20 years after the events listed above, the world population has already reached 7.7 billion. Google is one of the major private companies in the world, Bluetooth is widely used around the world, and few people remember that Windows 98 ever existed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average currently trades above 25,000 points, while crude oil prices have skyrocketed above $100/barrel and currently trade around $60/barrel. Even though the late 1990’s is not too far away in our time line, it feels like a lifetime has passed since then. Similarly, in the corn market, big changes have also happened in the last two decades. In the late 1990’s, the United States was the dominant corn producer and exporter in the world, producing about 240 million metric tons (40% of world total) and exporting close to 50 million metric tons (65% of world total). Brazil, on the other hand, was a minor player in the corn market, producing approximately 25 million metric tons (4% of world total) and exporting barely nothing. Ukraine had an even smaller participation in the world market. Corn was used mainly to feed livestock. USDA data shows that approximately 60-70% of total corn use was dedicated to feed, while most of the remaining quantity would go to food and industrial use.