Free the Onion Futures!

Are we truly free unless we can bet on the price of onions? Many brave souls are finally crying out.

On Monday, outside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a group of students from the University of Chicago held a curious protest. They weren’t protesting against Israel or billionaires, as many of their classmates probably do. It was against . . . well, just watch this:

HAPPENING NOW in downtown Chicago, outside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the historic center of onion futures trading pic.twitter.com/5kr8WsbgOC

— For Our Futures (@foronionfutures) October 19, 2026

The student group, For Our Futures, has a single mission: liberate the trade of onion futures. Futures, as in the financial instruments that enable investors to bet on the price of a commodity by purchasing an obligation to buy or sell it at a predetermined price on a certain date. And onions, as in the vegetable.

In addition to financial assets and traditional commodities like gold and oil, many agricultural goods are regularly traded through futures markets, including (but not limited to) corn, sugar, wheat, coffee, dairy, livestock, and even frozen concentrated orange juice. But tragically, there hasn’t been a futures market for onions since 1958.

Three years earlier, a pair of traders cornered the market on onion futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, successfully accumulating 99.3 percent of the available onions in the city, or 30 million pounds. They then shorted the price of onions and flooded the market with their supply. Making millions in the process, they sent onion prices crashing to virtually nothing and bankrupted many onion farmers.

To prevent such a scheme from happening again, Congress passed the Onion Futures Act of 1958, completely banning the trade of futures contracts on the vegetable. To date, onions are the only agricultural commodity whose futures have ever been prohibited. (The only other banned contracts are for box-office revenues on movie releases, at the behest of the film industry.)

For Our Futures argues that the 1958 law is now outdated, and it needlessly restricts the free price discovery of onions. “Contracts are crucial for price stability,” they declare, “and for hedging risks associated with weather and market fluctuations.” If futures contracts existed, onion farmers could once again hedge against prices falling, thereby shielding them from risk. Grocery stores and restaurants could leekwise hedge against onion prices rising.

Unfortunately, onion futures might not spring up even if they were legalized. No other country has such a market today, as onions are considered too perishable to support long-term contracts. But we’ll never know if an innovative commodities exchange in America could be the exception until the Onion Futures Act is peeled away.

For their efforts to hasten that glorious day, when we are free to commit to onion purchases at any future date, the students in Chicago are nothing short of national heroes.