Planet Partner SatAgro Signs a Contract with American Crystal Sugar Company for Sugar Beet Crop Monitoring

October 07, 2024

Planet Labs PBC announced that they have signed a contract with American Crystal Sugar Company, through Planet partner SatAgro, a precision agriculture company. Leveraging Planet satellite data, American Crystal Sugar is informing their advanced sugar beet monitoring work in the northern United States.

As the largest beet sugar producer in the U.S., American Crystal Sugar’s grower-owned cooperative provides about 15 percent of America’s finest quality sugar. With this collaboration, American Crystal Sugar has taken innovative strides to research and invest in some of the latest global capabilities offered for precision farming. The company is now able to process and analyze PlanetScope satellite data within SatAgro’s tailor-made interface, providing the company near daily insights about harvest progression, yield formation speed and yield forecast, in order to support informed decisions on crop management.

“Covering sugar beet production in real-time across the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota is a challenge, and this new ability to monitor harvest progress and crop size is critical to managing our assets and resources,” said Joe Hastings, General Agronomist at American Crystal Sugar. “It also gives us greater confidence in crop yield and harvest progress predictions"

By creating intuitive and scalable digital tools, SatAgro enables their users across the agricultural industry to optimize inputs as well as improve crop yields and overall agricultural management and sustainability. Their digital platforms leverage a multitude of data sources, including Planet satellite imagery, to offer unique agronomic solutions, from fertilizer management plans compatible with smart machinery to various yield prediction methods. 

“For the past four seasons, we have had the privilege of helping implement new aspects of digital farming with American Crystal Sugar. Now that PlanetScope data has become a significant source of crop intelligence, we see a step change in the quality of service,” said the founder of SatAgro, Przemyslaw Zelazowski.

“Farmers and agriculture companies need timely and precise insights from Earth observation data and a seamless means of integrating this data into their day to day work,” said Ashley Johnson Planet President and CFO. “With ongoing data from Planet and analysis from SatAgro, American Crystal Sugar can advance its critical work to improve the sustainability and profitability of sugar beets and feed a growing population.”