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Methodology & Data Sources

FarmAssist answers agricultural questions by retrieving data from authoritative government databases and pairing that retrieval with a large language model that interprets the user's question and formats the response. This page documents what we ingest, how we index it, and how citations work.

Primary data sources

USDA NASS Quick Stats

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is a division of the United States Department of Agriculture. Its Quick Stats database is the official source for US agricultural survey and census data, covering all 50 states from the early 1900s to the present. FarmAssist indexes:

  • Crop acreage planted, harvested, and abandoned
  • Yield per acre and total production
  • Pesticide and herbicide application surveys (active ingredient, rate, frequency)
  • Crop progress, condition, and inventory data
  • Farm economics: prices received, cost of production

Quick Stats data is in the public domain. FarmAssist's queries hit the NASS Quick Stats API and cache results to keep the assistant fast.

US EPA pesticide registration

Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the US Environmental Protection Agency registers every pesticide product sold or distributed in the United States. FarmAssist references EPA registration data and label PDFs available through the Pesticide Product Label System (PPLS).

Health Canada PMRA

The Pest Management Regulatory Agency within Health Canada is Canada's federal authority for pesticide registration under the Pest Control Products Act. FarmAssist references PMRA's Public Registry of Pesticides and indexes registered active ingredients, registered uses, and label search results.

BC NMP — British Columbia Nutrient Management

FarmAssist references British Columbia's Nutrient Management Planning resources for Canadian growers needing region-appropriate nutrient guidance.

How retrieval and answers work

  1. Question parsing. A language model interprets the natural-language question and identifies the data dimensions (commodity, geography, year, metric) needed to answer it.
  2. Targeted retrieval. FarmAssist issues structured queries to the source databases (NASS API, indexed EPA/PMRA label content, etc.) rather than relying on the LLM's training data.
  3. Answer synthesis. The model summarizes the retrieved records, formats numbers and units consistently, and produces a plain-English explanation.
  4. Citations. Every numeric and regulatory claim is paired with the underlying source so users can verify it directly.

What FarmAssist is not

  • It is not a substitute for reading the physical pesticide label, which is the sole legally binding document under FIFRA and the PCPA.
  • It is not certified agronomic, regulatory, or legal advice.
  • It is not a real-time field-conditions monitor — survey data has natural lag.

See the Terms of Service for the full disclaimer and the About page for an overview of the product.

Attribution

USDA NASS, the US EPA, and Health Canada PMRA are the authoritative source publishers. FarmAssist is an independent product; it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any government agency.