AMS 090-13

Pam Stanziani 202-720-8998

Washington, May 15, 2013 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced the development of an Application Programming Interface (API) for the National Farmers Market Directory, a resource provided by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).

APIs enable programmers to interact directly with an open data source to work with real-time data—rather than a static data export that can become immediately out of date.

“AMS continues to refine and improve the directory data, adding fields and honing our collection methods to yield clearer and more useful results,” said AMS Administrator Anne Alonzo. “The API is the next step in our efforts to improve this resource, and we will continue to listen to the consumers and developers who use it daily to keep improving it.”

The USDA National Farmers Market Directory is one of the Department’s most popular consumer search engines, with nearly two million page views per year. Over 7,800 farmers markets across the country have voluntarily listed themselves, and the directory is searchable by zip code, product availability, payment method and even if the market participates in federal feeding and nutrition programs.

Prior to the API creation, developers and designers looking to tap into the Directory data would have to download, export and reformat a flat file of the data. With the new API, as soon as the database adds or updates listings, they will appear in the apps and websites.

The API was developed in-house as part of the Administration’s Digital Government Strategy, an effort set to transform public-facing government services in line with 21st century expectations. USDA identified several high-value datasets to meet the API development milestone, the Directory representing one of them: www.usda.gov/digitalstrategy. Additional USDA APIs are available through the USDA Developer Hub: www.usda.gov/developer.

The API is now available online. USDA will be entering the National Farmers Market Directory API as one of the challenges in the National Day of Civic Hacking event on June 1-2. The challenge will also seek to integrate nutrition and food preparation resources and information from USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP). AMS, CNPP and USDA subject matter experts will be available for the event.

Get the latest Agricultural Marketing Service news at http://www.ams.usda.gov/news or follow us on Twitter @USDA_AMS. You can also read about us on the USDA blog.

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