INDIANA – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced significant updates and new features to its farmers.gov local dashboard, building on its mission to provide easily accessible, farmer-focused resources. These enhancements, stemming directly from user feedback, aim to make critical agricultural data and program information more readily available to producers nationwide and in U.S. territories.
The farmers.gov local dashboard was initially created to centralize resources from the USDA and other government agencies, transforming complex commodity and weather data into user-friendly charts and graphs. Since its last update in April 2024, the platform has undergone substantial improvements based on detailed analysis of user suggestions and feature usage data.
One of the most frequently requested additions was for more comprehensive commodities information. In response, the dashboard now includes links to additional commodity reports for every state, provided by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS). Users can also access their state’s current and prior year Agriculture Overview from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), which provides data on crop yield, production, acreage, livestock inventory, and more.
Navigating the array of USDA programs has also been streamlined with the introduction of a new “USDA Programs” section. This section features links to state web pages for common conservation programs, providing easier access to information about loan programs and the Loan Assistance Tool, which helps producers identify the best loan options for their operations.
The dashboard’s geographical reach has also expanded significantly. Launched in January 2023 for Iowa and made available for all 50 states in April 2024, the dashboard now includes U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, and other locations served by USDA programs. This means that farmers in American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, the Marshall Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C., can now find localized resources.
Beyond these new features, the dashboard has been reorganized based on feedback and analytics, placing the most popular and frequently accessed items closer to the top of the page for improved usability. Other updates include changes to settings that reduce the need for frequent state and county selection, as well as links to information about County Committee Elections.
The USDA states it will continue efforts to expand and improve the dashboard, promising future updates. To access the farmers.gov local dashboard, users need to select their state and county; no login is required.
