An alternative for downloading various USDA data from https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/ through R. You must sign up for an API key from the mentioned website in order for this package to work. Disclaimer:
This product uses the NASS API but is not endorsed or certified by NASS.
Eventually, this package will be uploaded to CRAN at which point you should be able to install the package through the typical method:
However, until the package has been submitted to CRAN the only way to use the package is through the development version (needs devtools installed):
Once installed through either method, you can load package the conventional way:
See the Get started article for a more in depth discussion of the package features.
See the documentation site.
There are other R packages that work with USDA Quick Stats that may be more useful to others:
If you are interested in download all of the Quick Stats data to your local machine, then their FTP site is the best option for downloading all.