We use our own field monitoring stations and lab analysis to calculate each farm's Productive Capacity Index. We turn it into recommendations that help farmers make better decisions, and into evidence for those who invest in agriculture.
Artificial intelligence can analyze almost any data. But the same soil moisture means one thing in a sandy soil and another in a clay soil, one thing at flowering and another at harvest. For data to be useful, it has to be measured on the farm and interpreted in context. AI alone does not do that.
Today's recommendations are calculated with tables built for other soils, other climates and other genetics. That is why we measure the potential of each farm and calibrate it, season after season, against its own harvest.
Measuring and interpreting only create value when someone can trust the result and act on it.
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In a traditional cycle, every year the farmer ends up deeper in debt and with poorer soil. With Norman, both margin and soil improve, and the transition becomes bankable.
Cognitive agriculture helps people understand agriculture through data measured and interpreted in context.
For the farmer, that understanding is built in four steps:
Measured in the field and in the lab.
What the soil has, what the crop needed, what was applied and what resulted.
What it costs to produce each hectare and what margin is left.
With lower, proven agronomic risk, they can negotiate better financing.
“If you understand your agronomic accounting, you can improve your economic accounting.”
Field survey, soil and water analysis, and the climate history of the site.
How much of the farm's potential is being reached and what is limiting it, on a scale of 100.
Our own field monitoring stations measure throughout the season and the index is updated.
The same data, read for each stakeholder:
100 is the expected productivity of that same farm.
Illustrative exampleThe program can measure how much each farm has changed since it joined.
Every measured farm is a point on the map. Together they show what limits production in each region (water, carbon, energy, nutrition, oxygen or root zone) and whether public policy improved it.
Water use and soil moisture data that inform decisions on irrigation and aquifer protection.
How it is used and where it goes are agreed in writing from the start.
Today lenders receive whatever the farmer declares. We deliver an income statement backed by what was measured on the farm: what was applied, when and why, and how that explains each cost and the margin.
The farm is monitored during the season, so the lender sees how it is doing before the payment date arrives.
The same farm measured every season, to see how its management and margin perform over time.
The baseline and index of every farm that supplies them: its potential and what limits it.
Monitoring of suppliers' management while the crop is in the field, to anticipate volume or quality problems.
A measured record of what was applied on each farm, to answer to their buyer or to an export audit.
A program farmers accept because it costs them nothing and it helps them, and that strengthens the weakest suppliers.
Field evidence of what changed in the soil, water and management of each farm, instead of estimated impact.
The same farms measured season after season, with the same method, to report with comparable data.
A portfolio of farmers with a baseline and monitoring, where capital can arrive backed by evidence.
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We work with two state governments, at two different scales.
With the State of Mexico's Institute for Agricultural, Aquaculture and Forestry Research and Training, as part of the Study to Characterize the Soils and Weather of the State's Production Units, we measure in the field with our own stations at representative points of each soil type. With that data and lab analysis we built the state's Productive Capacity Index map, which the institute uses to guide its programs.
With the Jalisco Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, under the Annual Climate Change Program, every farmer in the program has a baseline, a Productive Capacity Index and in-season monitoring, with recommendations for their management. The ministry can see what changed on each farm.
Watch the full 2024 results video (12 min, English subtitles) →
What is measured, why, and what it means. Turns more than fifty years of field experience and agronomic science into the judgment AI lacks: what each data point means in the context of each farm.
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Strategy, capital and partnerships. Sets Norman's direction and finds who to get there with: investors, lenders and business partners. Twenty years building technology companies, with one successful exit.
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The bridge between the field and Norman. Works with farmers, researchers and government officials so they understand what field data says and make decisions with it. More than twenty years traveling the country's farmland.
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The farmer's voice in the product. Makes sure every tool is designed from the perspective of the person who will use it on their land. Third-generation avocado grower.
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The technology that makes every data point reliable. Turns more than thirty years of building technology into the platform and models that apply that judgment to each farm, without losing a single data point along the way.
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From strategy to results. Makes sure what we sign gets delivered and that every program opens the door to the next market. More than twenty-five years selling technology.
LinkedIn ↗For farmer organizations that want to measure their farms at no cost to the farmer.
Write to us →For ministries and institutes that want measured, provable programs, from the region to the farm.
Write to us →For companies that buy from farmers and want a supply chain that doesn't break.
Write to us →For impact funds, multilaterals and development banks that finance the regenerative transition of agriculture and need to measure their impact.
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