nass-mcp-server

MCP Server for USDA NASS API

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service API, known as Quick Stats, contains survey and census data on United States agricultural production.

NASS API access

Request an API key here.

Tools

get_full_dataset(query: Query) -> str

Get all available data for a given commodity, location, and time.

Arguments:

• query (Query): Dictionary with three keys, "commodity", "location", and "time", each with a dictionary of parameter and value pairs.

Returns:

• str: Full response text as a string

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get_db_record_count(query: Query) -> str

Get the number, or count, of database records of a given commodity for a location and time.

Arguments:

• query (Query): Dictionary with three keys, "commodity", "location", and "time", each with a dictionary of parameter and value pairs.

Returns:

• str: String of JSON data with one key, "count", and a value of the number of records.

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get_param_values(query: ParameterQuery) -> str

Get all possible values of a query parameter by its name.

Arguments:

• parameter (ParameterQuery): Dictionary with one key, "param", and a value of the parameter name to get the values for.

Returns:

• str: String of JSON data with the parameter names and all their possible values as a list.

Getting started

I highly recommend using uv for package and virtual environment management.

Docker

The Dockerfile is setup to run the MCP server with default settings. Using make, you can build an image and run a container:

• build: build the image from Dockerfile
• run: run the MCP server with default settings (e.g. localhost, 8000:8000)

The short way

Setup command

If you have make, uv, and are on macOS/Linux, running make setup should be all you need to get started with the project.

The long way

Installation

Activate your virtual environment and:

pip install -r requirements.txt

.env

Copy the .env.example to a .env file. Replace the value of NASS_API_KEY with your NASS API key.

Configuration

There are several configuration options for changing functionality of the MCP server.

The following configurations are available as environment variables:

Option	Values	Default	Description
NASS_API_KEY	string		Your NASS API key
NASS_MCP_HOST	string	0.0.0.0	The host to run the MCP server on
NASS_MCP_PORT	integer	8000	The port to run the MCP server on
NASS_MCP_FORMAT	CSV or JSON or XML	CSV	The format to return the data in from the NASS API /api_GET endpoint
NASS_ENV	production		A flag for telling the MCP server to skip local dev steps (e.g. load_dotenv)

The following configurations are available as command line arguments

Option	Values	Default	Description
-t --transport	streamable-http or stdio	streamable-http	Transport protocol for the MCP server