USDA Market News Scraper

USDA Market News Scraper

Scrape USDA Market News reports for livestock, grain, and commodity prices, up to a million per run. Each report comes with its full title, publication date, commodity type, and structured price data. No API key or registration. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

USDA Market News publishes mandatory price reports for cattle, hogs, beef, pork, lamb, dairy, and grains, but the site offers no bulk download or API for analysts. This Actor reads the public report feed directly, filtered by commodity type, keyword, and date range, and returns each match in one fixed schema. Build your own historical price database without manual copying.

Who uses it	What they scrape USDA Market News for
Livestock producers and ranchers	Track daily cash and futures prices for cattle, hogs, and lambs to time sales.
Commodity analysts	Build historical price series for beef, pork, and dairy to model supply and demand.
Agricultural economists	Monitor USDA mandatory price reports for research on market transparency.
Food industry procurement teams	Watch boxed beef and wholesale pork prices to negotiate supplier contracts.

What it does

This Actor collects USDA Market News reports by commodity type, keyword, and date range, and returns each one as a flat row with its title, date, and price data.

• 🐄 Commodity type filter: select beef, cattle, pork, swine, lamb, dairy, or fetch all types in one run.
• 🔍 Keyword search: filter report titles by commodity name like 'boxed beef', 'slaughter', or 'hog'.
• 📅 Date range: pull historical reports from any start date to any end date in MM/DD/YYYY format.
• 📦 Bulk collection: collect up to a million reports per run for large historical datasets.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with USDA Market News data

🐂 Monitor fed cattle prices daily.

A cattle producer runs the Actor each morning filtered to 'cattle' with keyword 'fed' to see the latest negotiated cash prices before deciding whether to sell a pen.

🥩 Track boxed beef cutout values.

A meat wholesaler pulls the last 90 days of beef reports with keyword 'boxed beef' to chart the cutout value trend and adjust wholesale pricing.

🐖 Build a historical hog price database.

An agricultural economist sets dateFrom to '01/01/2020' and reportType to 'swine' to collect every swine report into a single dataset for a supply-chain study.

🥛 Watch dairy product prices for procurement.

A cheese manufacturer runs the Actor weekly with reportType 'dairy' and keyword 'cheddar' to track the USDA cheddar barrel price before locking in milk contracts.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API or registration	Reads the public USDA Market News feed directly with no account or key.
Historical data	Date range inputs let you pull years of past reports for backtesting and analysis.
Fixed flat schema	Every report lands as one row with the same columns, ready for CSV or database import.
Commodity-specific runs	Target only beef, pork, dairy, or lamb reports without noise from other markets.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets USDA Market News the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	USDA Market News Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When USDA Market News changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from commodity type, keyword, and date range, alone or together, and filters run as each report is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10,
  "reportType": "cattle"
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200,
  "reportType": "cattle"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.0065 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$0.65
1,000 results	$6.50
10,000 results	$65.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the USDA Market News Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to USDA Market News through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/usda-market-news-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your keyword and reportType filters are not too narrow. Try setting reportType to 'all' and removing the keyword to see what reports are available, then tighten filters. Also verify your date range covers days when markets were open.

The date filter is not returning reports I know exist.

USDA Market News uses MM/DD/YYYY format. Make sure your dateFrom and dateTo strings use forward slashes and two-digit months and days, like '03/01/2026'. Reports are published on business days only, so weekends and federal holidays will have no data.

My run is taking a long time.

Large date ranges with high maxItems values will take longer because the Actor paginates through the USDA portal. Reduce the date range or lower maxItems, or run multiple smaller batches in parallel.

Some reports have missing price fields.

USDA reports vary by commodity and report type. A cattle auction report will have different columns than a dairy product report. Missing fields in your dataset mean that particular report type does not include that data point.

I need grain prices but the grain filter is not listed.

Use reportType 'all' and set the keyword to 'corn', 'soybean', 'wheat', or 'grain'. The USDA portal organizes grains under broader categories, so keyword search is the most reliable way to find them.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is USDA Market News?	USDA Market News is a service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that publishes mandatory and voluntary price reports for livestock, grain, dairy, and other commodities. The reports are collected from auctions, packers, and processors across the country.
Do I need an API key or USDA login?	No. This Actor reads the public USDA Market News report feed directly. No registration, API key, or USDA eAuthentication account is required.
What commodities can I scrape?	You can filter by beef, cattle, pork, swine, lamb, and dairy reports. Use the 'all' option to fetch every available commodity type in one run.
Can I get historical prices?	Yes. Set the dateFrom and dateTo fields in MM/DD/YYYY format to pull reports from any date range. The USDA portal keeps years of back reports available.
How many reports can I collect in one run?	You can set maxItems up to 1,000,000 reports per run. For multi-year historical datasets, run the Actor in batches by date range.
What format does the data come in?	The Actor returns each report as a flat row with a fixed schema. You can export the dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform.
Can I search for a specific commodity by name?	Yes. The keyword field filters report titles case-insensitively. Use terms like 'boxed beef', 'slaughter', 'hog', 'cheddar', or 'barrow' to narrow results.
Does this cover grain prices?	The USDA Market News portal includes grain reports. Use keyword terms like 'corn', 'soybean', or 'wheat' with reportType set to 'all' to find grain market reports.
How often is the data updated?	USDA Market News publishes reports throughout each business day as markets close and prices are compiled. Run the Actor on a schedule to capture new reports as they appear.
Is this the same data as the USDA AMS API?	This Actor reads the public web portal, which contains the same mandatory price reports distributed through the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. It does not use the AMS API and requires no key.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by United States Department of Agriculture. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.