DOI: 10.7910/dvn/28209
title: Cattle Auction Markets in the USA: a De-duplicated List Compiled from Trade Association and Federal Agency Directories

description: &lt;p&gt;
Cattle auction markets are business entities that facilitate the transfer of cattle among livestock producers. Transfer of ownership is typically concurrent with physical movement of livestock from a consignor's animal holding on to the auction's premises and then off again to the buyer's animal holding. Because auction markets provide hubs in the cattle transportation network, they provide a unique opportunity for livestock disease transmitting contacts between otherwise isolated farms, ranches and other animal holdings. For this reason, a &lt;i&gt;post-hoc&lt;/i&gt; analysis of the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic in the UK supported targeting containment policies around livestock auction markets at high risk of marketing animals from an infectious holding (&lt;a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S095026880500453X"&gt;Shirley &amp; Rushton 2005&lt;/a&gt;). Any similar analysis in the US would require basic data on the locations of auction markets and their contact with livestock producers, but no such dataset
exists; the agricultural census conducted by the US Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is restricted to qualifying farms (&lt;a href="http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/#full_report"&gt;Anon. 2014&lt;/a&gt;, Appendix A). However, directories of livestock auction markets are maintained by different private and public entities for various purposes. While none of these provide a comprehensive list of cattle auction markets, this study produced a compilation of four such lists yielding the most comprehensive, spatially explicit accounting of cattle auction markets currently available for the US.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
The list of cattle auctions was compiled from the following publicly available directories:
&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Summary: Facilities approved to handle livestock for interstate commerce, pursuant to Title 9 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Section 71.1.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Link: &lt;a href="http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wps/portal/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/sa_livestock_markets/"&gt;Approved Livestock Markets&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Grain Inspection, Packers and Stock
yards Administration (GIPSA) of the USDA
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Summary: Market agencies selling livestock that are required to register with GIPSA under the Packers and Stockyards Act.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Link: &lt;a href="http://www.gipsa.usda.gov/psp/markets.aspx"&gt;Registered and Bonded Market Agencies Selling Livestock on Commission&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of the USDA
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Summary: Market News publications catalogue price and sales information at cattle auctions distributed across multiple states.
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Link: &lt;a href="http://www.ams.usda.gov/market-news/slaughter-cattle-auctions"&gt;Slaughter Cattle Auctions&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Link: &lt;a href="http://www.ams.usda.gov/market-news/feeder-and-replacement-cattle-auctions"&gt;Feeder and Replacement Cattle Auctions&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Livestock Marketing Association (LMA)
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Summary: Trade association and insurance agency representing livestock markets and dealers nationwide.
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
Link: &lt;a href="http://www.lmaweb.com/find-an-auctiondealer-2"&gt;Auction/Dealer Locator Service&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
We employed a conservative matching procedure to identify markets represented in multiple lists and assign them a common premises identifier. Subsequently, the county or county equivalent where each premises is located was found by combining address information from each corresponding market. To identify the county containing a city or street address, we used two geocoding web services, &lt;a href="http://www.geonames.org/"&gt;GeoNames&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim"&gt;Nominatim&lt;/a&gt; via the &lt;a href="http://open.mapquestapi.com/geocoding/"&gt;MapQuest Open Geocoding Service&lt;/a&gt;. No attempt was made to complete partial entries or correct incorrect address components in the compiled market list. Only 36 of 1814 premises could not be assigned to a county due to incomplete or contradictory address information. Links given below as Related Material provide source code for the market matching procedure and a map of the distribution of cattle auction markets from the compiled list.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Related Material:
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href="https://github.com/itcarroll/compile_cattle_auction_market_lists"&gt;GitHub repository for market de-duplication and county assignment methods&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href="https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1xccP8uyyfecJu-yejDCQ4-bIQpoG7bEw8IyiMn7g"&gt;Data visualization on Google Fusion Tables&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;