EWG Farm Subsidy Database Scraper

Scrapes USDA farm subsidy recipient data from the Environmental Working Group Farm Subsidy Database. Returns recipient names, locations, total payments, and program-level breakdowns (commodity, conservation, disaster) covering 1995–2024 — a dataset tracking $500B+ in payments to roughly 2.5 million recipients across the United States.

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EWG Farm Subsidy Scraper Features

• Extracts subsidy recipients for any US state or specific county (by FIPS code)
• Returns 13 fields per record: name, ID, city, state, ZIP, county, total lifetime payments, and program-level breakdowns
• Filters by subsidy program type — all programs, commodity only, conservation only, or disaster only
• Discovers recipients from top-recipient listings, starting with the highest-paid farms per county
• Returns numeric payment totals in USD, ready for analysis without string parsing
• Handles Cloudflare protection via residential proxy — runs as configured, no manual intervention

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What Can You Do With USDA Farm Subsidy Data?

• Journalists and researchers — identify the largest subsidy recipients in a given state, county, or program, and cross-reference against public records
• Policy analysts — track commodity vs. conservation vs. disaster payment distributions over time by geography
• Investigative teams — build recipient databases for specific congressional districts or farming regions ahead of legislative coverage
• Academic researchers — assemble ground-truth datasets for agricultural economics studies without manually navigating EWG's paginated interface
• Lead generation — surface active farm operations by county for agricultural services, equipment sales, or commodity brokerage outreach

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How It Works

1. Provide a US state code (IL, IA, TX, etc.) and a program type — or use the defaults to pull Illinois's top commodity subsidy recipients
2. The scraper identifies the highest-subsidy counties for that state and fetches the top-recipient list, paginating as needed
3. For each recipient discovered, it fetches the payment summary page and the address page — two requests, one complete record
4. Results are saved to the dataset as structured JSON with consistent field names

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EWG Farm Subsidy Scraper Input

{
  "maxItems": 50,
  "stateFips": "IA",
  "programCode": "totalfarm"
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
maxItems	integer	10	Maximum number of records to return
stateFips	string	(none)	Two-letter US state code (IL, IA, ND, etc.). Leave blank to pull from a default set of farming counties
programCode	string	total	Subsidy program: total (all), totalfarm (commodity), total_cr (conservation), total_dis (disaster)

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EWG Farm Subsidy Scraper Output Fields

Each record corresponds to one subsidy recipient and includes their aggregate payment history from 1995 through 2024.

{
  "recipient_id": "A03488493",
  "name": "Warner Brothers Inc",
  "city": "Champaign",
  "state": "IL",
  "zip": "61820",
  "county": "Champaign",
  "total_lifetime_payments": 2847392,
  "commodity_subsidies": 1923104,
  "conservation_subsidies": 581200,
  "disaster_subsidies": 343088,
  "years_active": "1996-2024",
  "recipient_url": "https://farm.ewg.org/persondetail.php?custnumber=A03488493",
  "source_fips": "17019"
}

Field	Type	Description
recipient_id	string	EWG internal recipient ID (custnumber)
name	string	Recipient name — individual or entity
city	string	City from USDA address records
state	string	State abbreviation
zip	string	ZIP code from USDA address records
county	string	County where the farm is located
total_lifetime_payments	number	Total USDA payments received 1995–2024 (USD)
commodity_subsidies	number	Commodity subsidy payments 1995–2024 (USD)
conservation_subsidies	number	Conservation subsidy payments 1995–2024 (USD)
disaster_subsidies	number	Disaster subsidy payments 1995–2024 (USD)
years_active	string	Years the recipient appears in USDA records
recipient_url	string	Direct link to the EWG recipient profile page
source_fips	string	FIPS code of the county used to discover this recipient

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🔍 FAQ

How do I scrape the EWG farm subsidy database?

EWG Farm Subsidy Scraper handles it. Set stateFips to your target state, configure maxItems, and run. The actor discovers top recipients by county, fetches each profile, and returns structured data — no browser navigation required on your end.

What does EWG Farm Subsidy Scraper cost to run?

The actor charges $0.10 per run plus $0.002 per record scraped. A run pulling 500 records costs approximately $1.10. Runs with maxItems under 20 typically complete in 3–6 minutes.

What data is available in the EWG farm subsidy database?

The database covers USDA subsidy payments from 1995 through 2024 across three program types: commodity subsidies (direct payments, crop insurance, ARC/PLC), conservation programs (CRP, EQIP, CSP), and disaster assistance. Each recipient record includes name, location, and aggregate payment totals.

Can I filter by county or specific FIPS code?

Yes. Pass a 5-digit FIPS code directly in stateFips — the actor recognizes numeric input as a FIPS code and queries that county directly. For example, "17019" pulls Champaign County, IL.

Does EWG Farm Subsidy Scraper require proxies?

It uses Apify residential proxies automatically. The EWG database is behind Cloudflare protection, so residential proxies are required — the actor handles this without any configuration on your part.

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Need More Features?

Need different program codes, bulk state coverage, or year-level payment breakdowns? File an issue or get in touch.

Why Use EWG Farm Subsidy Scraper?

• Public interest data, structured — The EWG database contains 30 years of USDA subsidy records that are technically public but practically inaccessible without clicking through hundreds of paginated results.
• Affordable — ~$0.002 per record, with no subscription or account required on your end.
• Clean output — Returns numeric payment totals, not dollar-formatted strings. The data lands in your dataset ready to analyze.