Farmonaut FAQ: farms, mines and partners

Farmonaut is a satellite and AI company founded in 2018 (legal name Farmonaut Inc.). On the farming side, 200,000+ farmers use it for advice on each field's crop health, water, soil, pests and fertilizer. On the mining side, we rank mineral Exploration Targets for license holders and exploration teams.

Farmonaut is a US-based company, and its legal name is Farmonaut Inc. Farmers use the platform on fields in 135 countries, and we have analyzed mining licenses in 33 countries.

Yes. We've operated since 2018, 194 businesses in 47 countries have fields on the platform, and 57 named companies have commissioned mineral exploration work from us. Independent researchers have published studies naming Farmonaut, which you can find on Google Scholar, and more background is on our About Farmonaut page.

In farming, it's farmers, agronomists, agribusinesses, plantations, lenders, insurers and software teams; 194 businesses in 47 countries have fields on the platform. In mining, it's license holders, exploration companies, geologists, consultants and investors, and we've worked with 57 named client companies.

No. For farming you only need the field boundary. For mineral detection you only need the license or concession boundary and the minerals you are targeting.

For farms, open the Farmonaut web app and add a field. For mining, send your boundary through the mining quote form; we reply within one working day with the scope, price and delivery timeline.

Location is rarely a problem, because the satellites we use cover the whole planet. Farmonaut has fields in 135 countries, and in this and the last financial year analyzed licenses in 33 countries, led by Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal and Mauritania.

Every few days, whenever an optical or radar satellite passes over your field. Radar can see through cloud, so you still get readings on days when the optical image is blocked.

The analysis covers every 10 meters of each field, in 16 satellite views such as NDVI, NDRE, EVI, SAVI, NDWI, NDMI, evapotranspiration, soil organic carbon, elevation and radar. You can compare any two dates or play back the whole season.

166 crops so far, including apple, rice, wheat, cotton, maize, soybean, sugarcane, almonds and cocoa. Plantations are covered too: 116,000+ acres of oil palm across 35,300+ plots in 11 countries.

Search an address, draw the boundary on the map, or upload a KML, KMZ or shapefile. It takes about a minute, and your first readings arrive after the next satellite pass.

Optical views such as NDVI need a clear view of the ground, so on a cloudy pass they wait for the next clear one. The radar views, including the radar vegetation index and radar soil moisture, see through cloud, smoke and haze, so they keep updating in the meantime.

Each reading covers a 10 by 10 meter square, so a quarter-acre plot (about 1,000 square meters) holds only around ten of them. Pixels along the edge also pick up whatever is next door, such as a road or a neighbor's crop. Readings on very small or narrow plots are less reliable, and it helps to draw the boundary just inside the field edge.

The satellite measures light reflected by the crop, and indices like NDVI are reliable for comparing parts of a field and tracking it from one date to the next. What a low reading means still needs a field check: water stress, a pest and a nutrient shortfall can look alike from above. Readings are weaker early in the season, when bare soil dominates, and on very small fields.

You get six things for each field: crop health on a five-level scale; water need in millimeters per day for the next 7 days; soil acidity, salinity and organic matter; a yield estimate and harvest date; pest, disease and weed risk, with an organic and a chemical option; and fertilizer doses in kilograms for 5 nutrients. When a field needs no fertilizer, the report says "apply nothing".

JEEVN AI is Farmonaut's AI farm advisory. It combines each satellite pass with soil history, local weather and the crop's stage to produce the field advice, and it is included in Farmonaut's paid farm plans.

Yes. Field reports are available in 248 languages and download as PDF. You can also share a field by link with your agronomist or buyer, and they can open it without logging in.

In their own estimates, a Florida blueberry farmer cut irrigation and fertilizer use by 30–50%, and a 190-acre farm in Algeria used 51% less water than watering daily. Full write-ups are on the case studies page.

No. It shows which parts of a field are worth checking and the most likely cause, which means your scouting time goes where it's needed. You still need a field visit to confirm what's there.

Not the insects or the pathogen themselves. The report gives a pest, disease and weed risk with a probability, worked out from each satellite pass together with local weather and the crop's stage, plus an organic and a chemical control option. Use the high-risk warnings to decide where to scout first.

Farm monitoring plans are priced by the area you monitor; see current plans on the farm pricing page. Mineral detection is quoted per project. Larger estates, lenders and insurers can contact us for a quote.

Each project is priced on three things: the total area, the target minerals, and the report tier (Premium or Premium+). Larger areas cost more, and Premium+ costs more because it adds drilling guidance, 3D subsurface modeling and a conceptual mine plan. Send your boundary through the mining quote form for a price.

Choose a plan on the pricing page and pay at checkout on the subscription page. If an affiliate or partner gave you a promo code, apply it at checkout for 10% off.

For questions about an existing subscription, such as an invoice or a change of plan, open a ticket on the support page. For quotes on large estates, lending or insurance portfolios, or mining projects, use the contact page or the mining quote form.

Your fields sit in your own account. Someone else sees a field report when you share its link, and anyone with that link can open it without logging in, so share it the way you would any private document.

The Farmonaut privacy policy explains what data we collect, how we use it and the choices you have. If you have a question it doesn't answer, contact us.

How we handle data is set out in the privacy policy. If your project needs a confidentiality agreement before you share the boundary, raise it with our team when you request a quote.

It ranks the most promising zones on a license before any ground work starts, using satellite and geophysical data. Each Exploration Target comes with its location, estimated depth and quantity, which helps you decide where crews and drill rigs should go first. See satellite mineral detection.

Not directly. Satellites cannot see through the ground. They detect surface signs that point to mineralization below: alteration minerals, iron oxides, faults and fractures, heat, magnetic patterns and stressed vegetation. We score the places where several of those signs agree, because that's where gold or other minerals are most likely to be.

On engagements where clients tested the results, 90% of ranked zones were confirmed by ground or drill evidence. Keep in mind that these are Exploration Targets. They're meant to guide work ahead of a JORC or NI 43-101 resource estimate, not to replace one.

Clients have paid us to find 23 minerals so far, and anything with a distinct spectral or geophysical signature can be targeted.

• Multispectral (broad-band): gold, silver, copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel, iron, manganese, zinc, uranium, beryllium, tantalum, niobium, diamond, star garnet, quartz, gypsum, dolomite and more.
• Hyperspectral (narrow-band): rare earth elements (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, scandium, yttrium), palladium, rhodium, lithium-bearing minerals, epidote and more.

Eight sensor families: optical multispectral (Sentinel-2, Landsat 8/9), SWIR and emissivity (ASTER), radar (Sentinel-1, ALOS PALSAR, ALOS-2), thermal (MODIS), terrain (SRTM, Copernicus GLO-30, GEDI), magnetics (EMAG2), hydrology (MERIT Hydro) and land cover (Dynamic World). Hyperspectral data is added when minerals need narrow bands, such as rare earths, lithium and platinum-group metals.

Premium gives ranked targets, a prospectivity heatmap, location, depth and quantity per zone, structural and lithological mapping, confidence tiers, indicative economics and KML, GeoTIFF and GeoJSON files. Premium+ adds TargetMax™ drilling angles and depths, a 3D subsurface model, an economic block model, synthetic drillholes, a conceptual pit shell, grade–tonnage and life-of-mine schedule, P10/P50/P90 ranges and exports for Leapfrog, Vulcan, Surpac and Datamine.

It's a term from the JORC Code for a statement of exploration potential, given as ranges of tonnage and grade and clearly described as conceptual. Our ranked zones are Exploration Targets: they show where to sample and drill first, ahead of any resource estimate by a Competent or Qualified Person.

Under 5 days from the moment we have a usable boundary. Multi-license portfolios are delivered in phases.

We reply within one working day with the scope, price and delivery timeline. Once you go ahead, the report arrives in under 5 days from a usable boundary.

Yes. Multi-license portfolios are delivered in phases. In Ghana, for example, we screened nine licenses covering 533.65 km² in a single engagement.

The license or concession boundary (coordinates, or a KML, KMZ or GeoJSON file), the country, and the minerals you are targeting. If you are not sure which minerals to look for, we can advise on what the area is likely to hold.

Yes, though with less certainty. Under cover we rely on indirect signs such as radar structure, magnetics, multi-season composites and vegetation stress, and the confidence tier on each target shows how strong the evidence is.

No. It helps you decide where to drill and sample first, which means fewer holes and lower field costs. Farmonaut does not provide drilling, mining, investment or fundraising services.

Mining Pro is browser-based mineral exploration software used by 100+ mining businesses in 25+ countries. It has nine tools: 2D Map, Raster Inspector, 3D Viewer, Zone Table, Block Model, Drillholes, Mine Plan, Economics, and Export & Reports.

Mining Pro runs in your browser at mining.farmonaut.com, with nothing to download. It works from a detection run on a license, so for your own ground the first step is to send the boundary through the mining quote form.

Yes. Mining Pro exports DXF, OMF and Surpac STR/DTM files in real-world UTM coordinates, so they import into Leapfrog, Vulcan, Surpac and Datamine without re-positioning.

No. Drillholes, block models, pit shells and schedules in Mining Pro are conceptual, built from satellite-derived Exploration Targets. They're useful for planning a first drill program, but they are not a JORC or NI 43-101 resource.

Watch the free 16-chapter Mining Pro course (4 h 10 min). It walks through every tool on a demo license, from how satellite detection works to a conceptual mine plan.

Yes. Send a field to POST /submitField with your Bearer key and get JSON back with every satellite view and its values, the field report and crop, view and language codes. Read the API developer docs or try it in the Postman workspace.

The developer docs explain how to get a key for your account and walk you through your first request, up to reading a field's values. Keep the key on your server and out of any mobile app or web page.

Yes, as long as you keep 2,470+ acres under monitoring.

Yes. Seven partners already run Farmonaut under their own brand. Mining reports can also be white-labeled as an add-on, and traceability can carry your brand. Contact us to discuss it.

Farm fields come in as KML, KMZ or shapefile and reports go out as PDF or JSON through the API. Mining results come as KML, GeoTIFF and GeoJSON, with DXF/DWG, Surpac STR/DTM and OMF available for mining software.

You earn 20% of what your referred users spend, every month they stay subscribed, and they get 10% off by applying your code at checkout on the subscription page. Your affiliate dashboard generates the promo code, tracks earnings and exports CSV. Payouts go out on the 5th of each month by bank transfer or PayPal.

You introduce mining clients and earn a commission on approved projects; Farmonaut's team does all the technical work. Applications are reviewed manually. Apply to the mining affiliate program.

Agriculture affiliates are paid on the 5th of each month by bank transfer or PayPal, and the dashboard lets you export your earnings as CSV. Mining affiliates earn a commission on approved projects.

No. You make the introduction and Farmonaut's team does all the technical work. There's no dashboard for the mining program; each application is reviewed by hand.

An affiliate refers customers and earns a commission. A white-label partner runs Farmonaut under its own brand for its own customers, as seven partners already do. If that's what you have in mind, contact us.

Yes. The web app at sat.farmonaut.com runs in any phone or laptop browser, and there are apps for Android and iOS. Mining Pro runs in the browser at mining.farmonaut.com.

Yes. Agronomists and farm managers can keep many clients' fields in the same account and share each field by link. Agribusinesses can also run field teams with the Agro Admin app.

Open a ticket on the support page if you already use Farmonaut. For sales, partnerships or anything else, use the contact page.

If you already use Farmonaut, open a ticket on the support page. For sales, partnerships or anything else, write to us through the contact page. For how-to questions on Mining Pro, the video course covers each tool.