Ers Usda Gov USDA ERS ARMS Data API

Name: USDA ERS ARMS Data API
Brand: USDA ERS ARMS Data API
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentAnalyticsBusiness IntelligenceapiKey7 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Query US farm financial and production data from the USDA Economic Research Service ARMS survey by state, year, farm type, category, and variable.

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the USDA ERS ARMS Data API to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the USDA ERS ARMS Data API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fapi.ers.usda.gov%2Fusda-ers" | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fapi.ers.usda.gov%2Fusda-ers" | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with USDA ERS ARMS Data API.

List the states covered by the ARMS survey for a given year

Look up which years of ARMS survey data are available

Browse the category and variable taxonomy used in ARMS reports

GET STARTED

Start building with USDA ERS ARMS Data API

Explore with Jentic One

View OpenAPI Document

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for USDA ERS ARMS Data API, keeping it validated and agent-ready. The Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) Data API exposes the USDA Economic Research Service's flagship dataset on US farm financial and production economics. Researchers, journalists, and policy analysts query farm types, states, years, categories, and survey variables, then pull aggregated reports and raw survey data. The 7-endpoint surface covers reference lookups (states, years, farm types, categories, variables) plus the core report and survey data endpoints.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use USDA ERS ARMS Data API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Agricultural Economics Research

Pull ARMS survey aggregates for academic and policy research on US farm finance, production cost structure, and rural economy. Researchers query by state, year, and farm type to build longitudinal datasets without scraping ERS publications. Eliminates manual CSV downloads and keeps analysis tied to the canonical USDA dataset.

GET /arms/report with state=IA, year=2023, and farmtype=cash-grain to retrieve net farm income aggregates

Policy and Journalism Briefings

Build reproducible briefings on US agriculture for policy memos and news coverage. Use the reference endpoints to discover which states, years, and variables are available, then pull report numbers with citation-ready confidence intervals. Replaces ad hoc requests to USDA staff with a self-service data layer.

GET /arms/state to list covered states, then GET /arms/report with the chosen state and variable to fetch the cited figure

AgTech and Lender Benchmarking

Lenders, insurers, and agtech platforms use ARMS aggregates to benchmark borrower or customer performance against the regional and farm-type averages. The variable taxonomy supports drilling into expenses, revenues, and balance sheet ratios. The API delivers the official ERS figures so benchmarks are defensible.

GET /arms/farmtype to enumerate farm typologies, then GET /arms/surveydata filtered to the relevant typology and variable for benchmarking

AI Agent Data Lookup via Jentic

An AI research agent answering questions about US agriculture ("what was net farm income in Kansas in 2022?") can call the ARMS Data API through Jentic. Jentic resolves the api_key query parameter and surfaces the seven operations, so the agent picks the right endpoint and returns a cited figure.

Search Jentic for 'get USDA farm income data', load the GET /arms/report schema, and execute with state, year, and variable to return a cited number

Key Endpoints

7 endpoints — jentic publishes the only available openapi specification for usda ers arms data api, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/arms/state

List states covered by the survey

GET

/arms/year

List available survey years

GET

/arms/category

List report categories

GET

/arms/farmtype

List farm type classifications

GET

/arms/variable

List survey variables and their codes

GET

/arms/report

Retrieve aggregated ARMS reports by filter

GET

/arms/surveydata

Retrieve raw ARMS survey data slices

GET

/arms/state

List states covered by the survey

GET

/arms/year

List available survey years

GET

/arms/category

List report categories

GET

/arms/farmtype

List farm type classifications

GET

/arms/variable

List survey variables and their codes

Why Jentic?

What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.

Setup

Wiring the USDA ERS ARMS Data API by hand means setting up its API key auth and coding your own reads across the state, year, category, and survey data endpoints. Through Jentic you install once, import the USDA ERS ARMS Data API from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it.

Permission scoping

The ARMS query filters travel as request parameters rather than as ids in the URL path, and every operation here is read-only, so limit the agent to the read operations it needs, such as arms/surveydata or arms/report. Every operation you grant is your explicit choice.

Credential isolation

Your USDA ERS API key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'get ARMS farm financial data by state' or 'list available survey variables', and Jentic returns the matching ERS operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

FAQs

Specific to using USDA ERS ARMS Data API through Jentic.

Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for USDA ERS ARMS Data API?

USDA ERS does not publish an OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call USDA ERS ARMS Data API via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started with Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer.

What authentication does the USDA ERS ARMS Data API use?

ARMS uses an API key passed as the api_key query parameter on every request. Keys are issued free at api.data.gov. When called through Jentic, the key is stored in the vault and appended to the query string at execution time.

How do I find which states or years are covered before pulling a report?

Call GET /arms/state and GET /arms/year first. These reference endpoints return the valid filter values for /arms/report and /arms/surveydata, so you can build a query without hitting empty results.

What is the difference between /arms/report and /arms/surveydata?

/arms/report returns published aggregated figures (the same numbers as ERS report tables). /arms/surveydata returns finer slices intended for custom analysis, with the same survey weighting applied so you can compute your own aggregates.

How do I retrieve a USDA farm income figure through Jentic?

Run pip install jentic, then search 'get USDA farm income data'. Jentic returns the GET /arms/report operation. Execute with state, year, and variable parameters; the response includes the cited value and metadata.

Are there rate limits on the ARMS Data API?

The api.data.gov gateway applies a default limit of 1,000 requests per hour per key, which is shared across api.data.gov-fronted services. Higher limits are available on request to USDA.

Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the USDA ERS ARMS Data API?

Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which of the ARMS operations and which credentials the agent may use. Every operation here is read-only and its filters travel as request parameters rather than as ids in the URL path, so you can grant only the reads the agent needs, such as GET /arms/report and GET /arms/surveydata, while withholding the reference lookups it does not. Each operation you expose is your explicit choice, and your stored API key stays on your instance rather than in the agent's context.