Agriculture is the backbone of our lives. When we take a trip to the grocery store, we are surrounded by products that first came from a farm before making their way to the shelves. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, the most recent study from 2017 shows that over half of the nation’s 2.26 billion acres – approximately 1.2 billion acres – are devoted to agriculture. However, the vital industry faces its challenges. The United States loses around five tons of soil per acre every year due to repeated use of land and extreme weather events. That is 10 times the rate at which it regenerates, resulting in the loss of the most nutrient rich soil found at the surface. Farmers must make smart decisions to maintain and gain soil nutrients for a healthier harvest and more nourishing food for us to eat. The NASA Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER) project provides solar and meteorological data from NASA’s Earth observation satellites and models that farmers can use to make those smart decisions. Between 2019 and the fall of 2025, POWER fulfilled more than 434 million data requests from agriculture users through the POWER application programming interface (API), averaging more than 179,000 requests a day as data-backed solutions informed farmers’ decisions.
Regrow Ag, an artificial intelligence (AI) software company based in New Hampshire, monitors 1.7 billion acres of agricultural land worldwide with the help of POWER. Gayathri Gopalakrishnan, former director of environmental science at Regrow Ag, said POWER data primarily gets fed into its biophysical and biogeochemical models to estimate how fast crops grow, soil moisture content changes, and the soil biochemistry. Gopalakrishnan said these insights from POWER data are important for several aspects.
The first, and most important, is to make sure companies and their farmers know which crops to grow and best methods to do so based on typical weather patterns for a location.
“For example, corn is going to grow differently in Illinois compared to India,” said Gopalakrishnan. “When you include the data, it tells you how fast a crop grows and when it should be harvested. Depending on what the farmer does on the field, data can show how much crop residue is left on the field post-harvest and how that feeds into what happens within the soil. This is where the bacteria and the microbial systems grow.”
Regrow Ag accesses POWER open data Zarr files through Amazon Web Services (AWS) and pulls historical data from the following sources:
- Precipitation derived from NASA’s Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG).
- Temperature and wind speed from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2).
- Surface solar radiation from the Surface Radiation Budget Release 4-Integrated Product (SRB 4.0-IP) and Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) SYN1deg.
“Farmers need accurate data to plan their practices, forecast yields, and to help respond to climate events quickly and do it in a way that minimizes their economic and environmental impact,” said Gopalakrishnan.
Regrow Ag’s AI software also uses this data from the POWER project to create digital twins of agricultural fields – land mapped out at scale to monitor and measure the effects of everything that happens on a farm over millions of acres, including extreme weather events. This helps Regrow Ag suggest regenerative agriculture practices and measure the impacts of these practices on soil health for farmers. Regenerative practices, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, help reduce flood runoff, decrease drought impacts, and improve soil health, which overall strengthens crop resiliency, increases crop production, and helps farmers and corresponding companies reach their economic goals.
One of Regrow Ag’s customers, Oatly, utilizes its AI-powered agricultural software platform within their business model. The Swedish food company specializes in oat milk and other oat-based dairy alternatives such as coffee creamer and ice cream. Oatly sources its oats from Grain Millers, headquartered in Minnesota, which works with a network of farmers in the United States and Canada. Using AI-driven insights from Regrow Ag – based on the data sourced from NASA POWER – Oatly and Grain Millers collaborate to determine which regenerative agriculture practices are most suitable for farmers to adopt under Oatly’s Partnerships for Resilient Agriculture program. Stacy Cushenbery, the senior manager of global regenerative agriculture at Oatly, said this program incentivizes regenerative practices to encourage widespread adoption.
“We work strategically with Regrow and Grain Millers to understand our Canadian supply shed; this is done through mapping and analysis,” Cushenbery said. “The analysis involves assessing the prevalence of agricultural practices in the region. We additionally examine the abatement possibilities of practices, allowing us to understand the potential outcome.”
One of the regenerative practices Oatly and Grain Millers utilize as part of the Partnerships for Resilient Agriculture program is cover crops – crops such as grasses, legumes, and wildflowers planted for seasonal vegetative cover around cash crops to prevent soil erosion and retain moisture. Another practice is crop rotation – growing different crops in the same field to increase plant biodiversity and soil fertility. Cushenbery said the program has influenced farmers across the region to follow suit and embrace regenerative practices. For example, she said Canada has a high adoption rate of crop rotation with 80% of farmers planting three or more crops.
POWER’s globally accessible data played a big role in Regrow Ag’s rapid expansion across the world. The company, which was founded in 2016, has grown to monitoring 1.7 billion acres of agricultural land globally, including in Europe and in countries like Brazil and Vietnam. Gopalakrishnan said that is because the company did not need to spend money to set up weather stations worldwide, test the soil, and research land themselves, thanks to the NASA POWER project.
“2022…when I started, we were pretty much in the U.S. Midwest where you have a lot of data. It's 2025, so three years later, we're in 17 different countries and we couldn't have done that without the use of datasets like NASA POWER,” said Gopalakrishnan.
Jeff Albrecht, principal software engineer at Regrow Ag, said NASA POWER’s accessible data has ensured Regrow Ag pulls in the most accurate datasets available, which builds trust from the farmers it serves.
“One of the biggest issues that we face with the technology is a lack of trust from farmers,” said Albrecht. “If we don’t do a good job modeling a particular field…that could cost the farmer their livelihood.”
Accurate and reliable data from the NASA POWER project helps Regrow Ag empower farmers – from smallholders to global suppliers like Oatly, General Mills, Kellanova, Cargill, and Nutrien – with the insights they need to build resilient supply chains. The next time you are at the grocery store, take a moment to consider the journey behind your food. That carton of oat milk or box of cereal in your cart represents continuous farming innovation and adaptation guided by NASA satellite and advanced modeling data, made accessible through POWER – leading to healthier soil, better crops, and more nutritious food on your table.