USDA Local Food Portal — Find Market

Purpose

Search the four USDA Local Food Portal directories (Farmers Markets, CSAs, On-Farm Markets, Food Hubs — plus the bonus Agritourism directory) near a US location and return matching listings as structured JSON: name, directory type, full address with lat/lon, distance from input, contact (name, email, phone), social-media URLs, and the canonical USDA detail URL. Read-only; never edits or submits the portal's "report this listing" / "claim this listing" forms.

When to Use

• "Find SNAP-accepting farmers markets within 20 miles of ZIP 60601."
• "Show me CSAs near Madison, WI that operate in June."
• "Look up the listing details for a market named 'Union Square Greenmarket'."
• "Resolve this USDA portal detail URL to a structured record."
• "Pull all on-farm markets in zipcodes 98101–98199" (bulk via per-ZIP API queries).
• Any task that would otherwise scrape the portal's HTML search pages — the underlying JSON API is faster, returns plaintext contact fields the detail page hides as PNG-obfuscated images, and tolerates polite rate limits without proxies.

Workflow

The portal's web UI is a thin jQuery client over a public JSON API at https://www.usdalocalfoodportal.com/api/. Two endpoints matter; both are unauthenticated, return JSON, and work with no proxy and no browser Verified — verified 2026-05-18 with both --proxies and direct (non-proxied) Browserbase fetches returning identical 200 responses with full data. Lead with the API path. The browser flow is only useful when an upstream caller hands you an opaque portal search URL they want re-executed verbatim — and even then, the search URL's query string can be replayed against the API.

1. Search the list endpoint

GET https://www.usdalocalfoodportal.com/api/get_searchresult_list/
    ?mydata[directory]={dtype}
    &mydata[location]={zip-or-address}
    &mydata[radius]={miles}
    &mydata[x]={longitude}
    &mydata[y]={latitude}
    &mydata[term]={keyword}
    &mydata[...filter]=v1|v2|v3

The mydata[...] PHP-array bracket syntax is mandatory. Sending ?mydata={JSON} returns HTTP 500 — "Cannot unset string offsets in class_FrontendNonWP.php:188". The backend's $_GET['mydata'] is consumed as a parsed array, not a JSON blob. URL-encode the brackets as %5B / %5D.

Required keys:

• mydata[directory] — one of: farmersmarket, csa, onfarmmarket, foodhub, agritourism. Multi-directory search supported by joining with | (e.g. farmersmarket|csa).

Location keys (at least one of these two patterns):

• ZIP-only: mydata[location]=10001 plus mydata[radius]={miles} is sufficient — the backend geocodes the ZIP server-side.
• Coordinate path: mydata[x]={longitude}&mydata[y]={latitude} (note: x=longitude, y=latitude — the portal's HTML form uses Google Places autocomplete which writes lng to current_x and lat to current_y). Pair with mydata[location]={display-string} and mydata[radius].

Optional filter keys (omit to skip the filter; multi-select values are pipe-joined):

Response shape — a flat array under data:

{ "data": [ { "listing_id": "300291", "listing_name": "...", ... }, ... ] }

Each record carries plaintext contact_email and contact_phone (unlike the detail endpoint — see gotcha below), full address (location_street, location_city, location_state, location_zipcode), lat/lon (location_x = longitude, location_y = latitude), distance (decimal miles from the input coords, only present when a coordinate or location was supplied), directory_type, and all six social-media URLs (media_website, media_facebook, media_twitter, media_instagram, media_pinterest, media_youtube, media_blog).

2. Construct the canonical detail URL

https://www.usdalocalfoodportal.com/fe/flisting/?lid={listing_id}&directory_type={directory_type}

Both values come directly from the search response. The trailing slash before ? is required — /fe/flisting?lid=... returns HTTP 301 to the slash-suffixed form, costing an extra round-trip.

3. Single-record lookup

When the caller provides only a market name or only a detail URL:

• Detail URL given → parse lid and directory_type from the query string and re-issue the search API with mydata[directory]={dtype}&mydata[term]={market_name_if_known} and then filter the response by listing_id == lid. This is preferred over the listinginfo endpoint because the search API returns plaintext contact fields.
• Name only → mydata[directory]={dtype}&mydata[term]={name} with no location. The term parameter matches against listing_name server-side and returns nationwide hits (verified: term=Union Square returned 4 records spanning NY, NC, WI, MA).

4. Pagination

There is none. A single call returns the full result set for the given filters — verified up to 124 records on a single ZIP+radius query. The classic web UI does client-side paging via DataTables over the full result array. If you need to keep payloads small, subdivide by sub-filter (state, month, day-of-week, payment type) rather than expecting limit/offset params.

Browser fallback

Only useful if (a) the JSON API ever starts returning HTML, or (b) an upstream system requires you to literally navigate the user-facing search URL. The page is server-rendered Bulma/PHP with a Google-Places autocomplete on the location input.

1. Open https://www.usdalocalfoodportal.com/fe/fdirectory_{dtype}/?source=fe&directory={dtype}&location={loc}&x={lng}&y={lat} — the same query parameters the API accepts (without the mydata[...] bracket wrapping).
2. The page's inline JS calls get_searchresult_list on load. Wait for #myloaderContainer to hide, then either:
   • Cheaper: intercept the XHR via browse network and read the JSON envelope directly (it's the same data as step 1).
   • More expensive: harvest cards from #listing_table tr DOM nodes — each <tr> holds an anchor <a href="https://www.usdalocalfoodportal.com/fe/flisting/?lid={id}&directory_type={dt}"> and visible text spans for name/address/distance, but contact_email / contact_phone are rendered as PNG images (anti-scrape) so you'll have no plaintext contact.

The browser path costs ~5–8 turns per query versus 1 turn for the API. Don't lead with it.

Site-Specific Gotchas

• mydata is a PHP array, not a JSON string. Send ?mydata[directory]=...&mydata[location]=.... Sending ?mydata={"directory":"..."} returns HTTP 500 (Cannot unset string offsets in class_FrontendNonWP.php:188) — the backend immediately treats $_GET['mydata'] as an array and calls unset() on it.
• Double-slash in the inline API URL is a red herring. The page's source emits url: "https://www.usdalocalfoodportal.com/api//get_searchresult_list" (note the //). The doubled slash 301-redirects to the single-slash form. Always use single-slash + trailing slash: /api/get_searchresult_list/?....
• Phone and email on the detail page (/api/listinginfo/) are PNG-obfuscated. The detail API returns contact_phone and contact_email as <img src="data:image/png;base64,..."> tags rendering the digits/string. The search list API returns them as plaintext — always prefer the search endpoint, even for single-record lookups. Don't waste turns OCR-ing the PNGs.
• The detail API otherwise returns pre-rendered HTML fragments, not clean fields. Endpoints like address, seasonproducts, specialproductionmethods, acceptedpayment, fnap, profile are HTML blobs you must regex-parse for <li> items. The list API doesn't carry these fields — if you need the goods/operating-hours breakdown, fetch /api/listinginfo/?lid={id}&directory_type={dt} and parse the <ul class="myul"><li>...</li></ul> blocks server-side.
• The bulk download endpoint exists but is unusable from Browserbase Fetch. GET /api/download_by_directory/?directory={dtype} dumps the entire catalog as a JSON array (no auth), but the response routinely exceeds 1 MB and Browserbase Fetch returns "502 The response body exceeded the maximum allowed size of 1MB". If you need a full dump, page by ZIP-radius-100 grid or by state and merge.
• Coordinate convention is inverted vs. the usual GIS norm. Form field current_x (and API param x) holds longitude; current_y / y holds latitude. Same convention is mirrored in response fields location_x / location_y. Double-check sign and magnitude (US longitudes are negative, between −66 and −125).
• Radius enum is 10/30/100/250 miles, not 5/10/20/50/100. Upstream task descriptions sometimes quote the latter set; the actual UI dropdown and API both validate against the former. Out-of-enum values are silently coerced to 30.
• Conventional is not a filter value. The specialproductionmethods enum only carries positive practice claims (Organic, Naturally Grown, Grass Fed, Halal, …). To list "conventional" markets, omit the filter entirely and post-filter the response for records whose specialproductionmethods field is empty.
• WIC Cash Value Voucher is not a filter value either. The fnap enum has WIC (general) and WIC Farmers Market Program (FMNP). The "Cash Value Voucher" (CVV) is a subset of general WIC benefits — it's not modelled separately in the portal.
• Commerical Checks is misspelled in the upstream enum. Send the typo verbatim (URL-encoded) — mydata[acceptedpayment]=Commerical%20Checks — or the filter is silently ignored.
• agritourism is a fifth, undocumented directory. It's in the same backend, accepts the same filters, and is the directory used by the portal's "directories near you" landing page. Worth supporting if the caller's task is location-based "what's nearby" rather than market-specific.
• No Referer / User-Agent / cookie checks. Verified with a bare browse cloud fetch (no proxy, no browser session) returning 124 records for ZIP 10001 + radius 30 + directory farmersmarket. Apache Server: Apache/2.4.59 () OpenSSL/1.0.2k-fips PHP/8.0.30; no Akamai/Cloudflare/Imperva fronting. Stay polite (≤ 1 req/s sustained) but no Verified is required.
• distance is omitted when no x/y or location is supplied. A pure term= query returns nationwide hits without distance values, so consumers should treat distance as optional.
• updatetime in the search response is a human string ("Nov 28th, 2022"), not ISO-8601. Parse with dateparser/dateutil or treat as opaque display data.

Expected Output

A single envelope per query, regardless of which input shape was used:

{
  "input": {
    "directory": "farmersmarket",
    "location": "10001",
    "x": -73.997,
    "y": 40.7505,
    "radius_miles": 30,
    "term": null,
    "filters": { "fnap": ["SNAP"], "operationday": ["operationtime_sat"] }
  },
  "result_count": 14,
  "listings": [
    {
      "listing_id": "300291",
      "directory_type": "farmers_market",
      "name": "Down to Earth Chelsea Farmers Market",
      "updated_display": "Nov 28th, 2022",
      "address": {
        "street": "W. 23rd Street off 9th Avenue",
        "city": "New York",
        "state": "New York",
        "zip": "10011",
        "full": "W. 23rd Street off 9th Avenue, New York, New York 10011"
      },
      "latitude": 40.746359,
      "longitude": -74.000805,
      "distance_miles": 0.51,
      "contact": {
        "manager_name": "Down to Earth Markets",
        "email": "[email protected]",
        "phone": "9149234837",
        "website": "https://downtoearthmarkets.com/"
      },
      "social_media": {
        "facebook": "https://www.facebook.com/chelseanycfarmersmarket",
        "instagram": "https://www.instagram.com/chelseafarmersmarketnyc",
        "twitter": null,
        "pinterest": null,
        "youtube": null,
        "blog": "https://downtoearthmarkets.tumblr.com/"
      },
      "brief_description": "Open: May to December. Available Products: Fresh fruits; Fresh vegetables; Baked goods; …",
      "detail_url": "https://www.usdalocalfoodportal.com/fe/flisting/?lid=300291&directory_type=farmersmarket"
    }
  ]
}

For single-record lookups by detail URL or by exact name (the API still returns a list — usually of length 1, occasionally many for ambiguous names), use the same envelope with result_count: 1 (or N for ambiguous) and a single-element listings array. When result_count > 1 for what the caller expected to be a single hit, surface the ambiguity to the caller — do not silently pick the first record.

For directory-type variants (csa, onfarmmarket, foodhub, agritourism), the schema is identical — only directory_type and the contents of brief_description differ. Per-directory product taxonomies differ (CSAs surface "Share size", "Pickup vs. delivery"; food hubs surface "wholesale", "distribution radius") but those nuances live in the detail endpoint's HTML fragments, not the list endpoint.

For zero-result queries, return { "result_count": 0, "listings": [] } — the API returns { "data": null } or { "data": [] } and both must be normalized to an empty array.