If you are unable to access even the first screen of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) on-line database, most likely your company's firewall is blocking access to port 81. Firewalls are designed to protect the users and the company from unauthorized access. Some firewalls will block access to all ports except port 80.
NASS uses two ports from the same IP on the same machine. Port 80 serves the standard web pages while port 81 serves the database application. A different port is used for the on-line database to improve the performance of the database application and improve the reliability of the static pages.
Access problems are generally resolved after the user initiates a request to the person responsible for their company's firewall. Sometimes the firewall administrator will want the IP address of the application. The application is accessed from: http://www.nass.usda.gov/QuickStats/
If we can be of further assistance, please give us a call on 1-800-727-9540.
