NAX is helping sugar cane growers maximize crop yields and reduce costs with advanced AI models over PlanetScope imagery

Sugar cane growers today are operating in a narrow margin environment. Climate variability, rising input costs, and pressure to produce more with less have turned everyday decisions into high-stakes calls. For operations spanning tens of thousands of hectares, a few days of undetected crop stress or a miscalculated harvest window can mean significant revenue loss.

NAX Solutions, a leading AgTech company with a strong presence across Latin America, is addressing this challenge head-on. By combining its proprietary AI models with Planet near-daily PlanetScope© imagery, NAX gives sugar cane producers timely, field-level intelligence that connects strategic decisions with field operations. Today, NAX supports roughly 3.7 million hectares around the world, representing approximately 36% of the Latin American sugar cane market.

Rather than simply delivering data, NAX focuses on measurable outcomes. Their platform turns high-frequency satellite imagery into clear operational guidance, offering rapid payback and scalable value for large, industrial producers working under real-world constraints.

A Partnership Built for Scale

Planet Orbit, Planet’s global partner ecosystem, is designed to help customers unlock value faster by pairing Planet data with domain experts who know how to operationalize it. The partnership between Planet and NAX is a powerful example of this approach in action.

“As we are focused on aggressive growth in Latin America, our relationship with Planet has solidified significantly over the last few years,” commented Aarón De Bernadis, CEO of NAX. “Our client base is expanding and some of our largest customers manage more than 100,000 hectares of sugar cane fields. They expect answers that help them make decisions quickly. In order to meet their demands, we recognized the need for a unique approach.”

By prioritizing high-frequency imagery, NAX has been able to scale its platform while maintaining consistent insight quality across regions and seasons. This approach has driven strong customer adoption, positioned NAX as a top growth partner within Planet’s private sector ecosystem, and expanded Planet’s footprint in the Latin American agricultural market.

High-Frequency Data, Real-World Results

Publicly available satellite data can provide useful context, but long revisit times often leave critical gaps. For a crop like sugar cane, those gaps can hide early signs of water stress, pest pressure, or uneven ripening.

By integrating NAX with PlanetScope near-daily coverage, growers gain visibility into every hectare they manage, almost every day. This level of continual observation means growers aren’t surprised by emerging issues and can take action while there’s still time to make a difference.

NAX’s AI platform provides timely, detailed information to help producers tackle some of their most costly challenges.

• Smarter input use and early anomaly detection: By pinpointing where attention is needed, NAX helps growers identify early threats such as weeds, pests, and water stress. Detecting stress and productivity issues precisely and at scale can help avoid yield losses of up to $190 per hectare per year. This is enabled by a steady flow of satellite imagery analyzed through robust AI models for stress monitoring, object recognition, and agronomic planning.
• Improved harvest timing and sequencing: Harvest timing is critical for sucrose recovery. Harvesting too early or too late in the crop’s phenological cycle can lead to significant productivity losses. Optimizing harvest sequencing based on timely data has been associated with increases of up to 10% in sugar yields, driving an industry-wide transformation in harvest planning among enterprise sugarcane producers.
• Reduced reliance on laboratory sampling: Satellite-based ripening monitoring enables remote tracking of crop maturity, reducing dependence on labor-intensive and costly laboratory testing. Customers report sampling cost reductions of 30–100% by replacing physical sampling with remote-sensing-based models.
• Less data complexity for producers: NAX absorbs the burden of managing massive volumes of high-resolution imagery, eliminating the need for growers to invest in specialized infrastructure or in-house data science teams. NAX clients directly access high-quality, curated information and agronomic recommendations derived from satellite imagery analysis.

The result is a single, streamlined platform that delivers advanced imagery alongside localized, actionable insights.

Investing in the Future

The success NAX has achieved is only the beginning. The company expects to grow fivefold over the next three years, with Planet data playing a central role in this expansion. Brazil, one of the world’s largest and most complex sugarcane markets, is a key focus, alongside planned expansion into Asian and African sugar-producing countries. In parallel, NAX has operational solutions for cereals, rice, and forestry, positioning itself as a reference platform for satellite-based monitoring and actionable agronomic insights across multiple production systems.

By prioritizing high-cadence Planet imagery within their proprietary platform, NAX is positioned to deliver timely, localized insights that helps growers stay productive and resilient despite regional variability.

At its core, this expansion reflects NAX’s commitment to strengthening agricultural efficiency world-wide. The Planet–NAX partnership demonstrates how satellite data and AI, when combined thoughtfully, can drive meaningful gains in productivity and sustainability. Together, we’re helping build a more resilient, data-driven future for the sugar cane sector.

Read our e-book to learn more about using data-driven crop management solutions to increase farm productivity, profitability, and sustainability. Or, request a demonstration to see how NAX’s AI models, powered by Planet data, can deliver clear, actionable insights for your sugar cane fields.