Livestock Counterparty Check | USDA P&S Records

Check livestock buyers, dealers, market agencies, and packers against current USDA Agricultural Marketing Service Packers and Stockyards public records before a transaction, onboarding decision, or compliance review.

This Actor turns multiple USDA record classes into one structured lookup and now supports both single checks and batches of up to 1,000 counterparties per run.

Independent tool: This Actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by USDA. It uses publicly available USDA AMS Packers and Stockyards records.

Product website: https://usda-ps-counterparty-guard.hwinkler5866.workers.dev/

Livestock seller protection guide: https://usda-ps-counterparty-guard.hwinkler5866.workers.dev/livestock-seller-protection-guide

Why use it

Manual USDA review can require opening multiple files, finding the correct legal or trade name, checking bond records, checking suspensions, and repeating the process for every counterparty.

This Actor automates that work and returns machine-readable evidence suitable for:

• livestock sellers checking a buyer before a transaction
• auction, procurement, and vendor-onboarding teams
• agricultural software and internal compliance workflows
• batch screening of counterparty lists
• AI agents and automation systems that need structured USDA evidence

What it checks

The current production snapshot covers:

• bonded dealers and market agencies buying on commission
• bonded market agencies selling livestock on commission
• bonded packers
• currently published suspension records

The currently available expired-registration source did not pass the product's freshness standard during validation. The Actor therefore returns NOT_AVAILABLE_CURRENT_SOURCE instead of claiming a current expired-registration clearance.

Common workflows

Ten public example tasks are available for high-intent workflows including:

• checking a livestock packer before selling
• checking a livestock market agency bond
• verifying a livestock buyer before a sale
• checking Packers & Stockyards suspension records
• looking up a USDA P&S bond record
• seller payment-protection review
• procurement and vendor-onboarding checks
• batch onboarding screening
• recurring counterparty review
• general batch screening

Use an example task when you want a saved, repeatable starting point instead of rebuilding input from scratch. Published tasks also give search engines and AI-agent discovery systems clearer use-case pages for this Actor.

Single check

{
  "businessName": "Tyson Fresh Meats",
  "region": "AR"
}

• businessName — legal or trade name
• region — optional U.S. state or Canadian province used to disambiguate matches

Batch check

The easiest option in Apify Console is Paste a list. Paste up to 1,000 counterparties, one per line:

Tyson Fresh Meats | AR
Arab Livestock Market, Inc. | AL
Example Livestock Buyer

The state/province after | is optional. A tab can also separate the business name and region.

For API and advanced integrations, submit the structured checks array:

{
  "checks": [
    {
      "businessName": "Tyson Fresh Meats",
      "region": "AR"
    },
    {
      "businessName": "Example Livestock Buyer",
      "region": "TX"
    }
  ]
}

Both batch methods support up to 1,000 counterparties. Each completed verification is returned as its own dataset item. Batch mode is charged per completed verification, not as a flat batch fee.

Output

Each completed verification returns structured fields including:

• match_status
• bonded-record match count
• current suspension matches
• unresolved suspension name matches
• matched legal or trade names
• matching basis and region resolution
• bond coverage amounts when present in USDA data
• source-attributed evidence
• snapshot version and source dates
• an explicit disclaimer

Possible match statuses are:

• MATCH
• MULTIPLE_POSSIBLE_MATCHES
• NO_MATCH

The Actor uses conservative name normalization and does not silently choose a fuzzy best guess when multiple entities could match.

Data freshness and safety

Production builds download the latest official USDA files available on the USDA source pages, validate their structure and record counts, normalize them, and generate a source-dated snapshot. Every result exposes the relevant USDA source dates so older official lists are not presented as newer than they are.

The supporting automation also refreshes the USDA snapshot daily. If a required source becomes stale or its structure changes unexpectedly, the verification path is designed to fail closed rather than return a false clean result.

A match or non-match is not a credit rating, legal determination, recommendation, or guarantee of payment.

Pricing

This Actor uses Pay per event pricing.

• one completed livestock counterparty verification: $0.05
• 100 completed checks: $5.00
• 1,000 completed checks: $50.00
• platform usage is not passed through as an additional charge

Invalid input and runs that stop before producing a completed verification do not intentionally trigger the verification event.

AI-agent access

This Actor is discoverable in Apify's agentic-user Store filter. Compatible AI-agent clients can use Apify's supported agentic-payment routes for eligible pay-per-event Actors, including x402 and Skyfire, without requiring a traditional Apify account for the agentic payment flow.

AI-agent and API guide:

https://usda-ps-counterparty-guard.hwinkler5866.workers.dev/ai-agent-usda-livestock-api

Integration

The Actor can be used through the Apify Console, API, CLI, OpenAPI integrations, and supported AI-agent/MCP workflows exposed by Apify.

For recurring workflows, save a task with your desired input and run it on an Apify schedule or from your own automation.

Official USDA sources

Data is derived from public records published by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Packers and Stockyards Division. Source dates and snapshot metadata are included with results so downstream systems can assess freshness.

• Dealer / market agency buying on commission: https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/packers-and-stockyards-act/regulated-entities/dealer
• Market agency selling on commission: https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/packers-and-stockyards-act/regulated-entities/market-agency
• Packer responsibilities and bonded-packer information: https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/packers-and-stockyards-act/regulated-entities/packer
• Packers & Stockyards enforcement and suspensions: https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/enforcement/psd

The website also exposes a public machine-readable source-health endpoint at:

https://usda-ps-counterparty-guard.hwinkler5866.workers.dev/api/public-status

This makes the current snapshot version, record counts, and source dates independently visible without running a paid verification.