By Roseanne Ramirez
Copyright e27
Agriculture worldwide is under increasing pressure from climate change. Farmers and governments face unpredictable droughts, devastating floods, and recurring wildfires that threaten crops, ecosystems, and food security—especially in tropical and subtropical regions where such extremes are intensifying. Addressing these challenges requires precise and timely insights into the health of soil and water resources. A new AI-driven innovation is now making that possible.
Revolutionizing soil moisture monitoring
Traditionally, understanding the true condition of soil has meant installing costly on-site sensors or conducting manual surveys—literally digging into the ground to measure what lies beneath the surface. These approaches are often too slow, expensive, or limited in scale to support large farming operations or regional monitoring.
DATAYOO, a Taiwan and Singapore-based agri-tech startup led by Dr. Shaw Wu, has developed a breakthrough alternative. Wu, a data scientist with more than a decade of AI algorithm expertise and extensive research experience in tropical and subtropical crops, founded the company with early backing from a Silicon Valley investment team and a leading Taiwanese financial VC. Emerging from Taiwan and Singapore, DATAYOO has quickly become a rising star across the Asia-Pacific and Latin America.
Its flagship platform, FarmiSpace, uses spectral data and patented AI algorithms to calculate actual soil water content at depths of 15 centimeters and 30 centimeters—even in areas covered by vegetation. With an average accuracy rate of 96%, the Soil Moisture Parameter enables farmers, governments, and researchers to go beyond merely ‘seeing the surface’ and access underground water conditions at scale. This allows them to anticipate drought risks, optimize irrigation for staple and high-value crops, detect early warning signals of pest and disease outbreaks, and even pinpoint dangerously dry areas that could fuel wildfires.
Beyond soil moisture, FarmiSpace provides a comprehensive suite of monitoring tools for crop and soil health. The platform tracks indicators such as crop water content stress, NDVI, biomass, and nitrogen levels, giving users a multi-dimensional view of their fields. Weekly or daily data updates allow for timely decision-making, while high-resolution mapping enables both smallholder farmers and large-scale agribusinesses to act with precision. Without any sensor installations on the ground, FarmiSpace can assess water stress, forecast harvest windows, and predict yields with up to 98.8% accuracy, as confirmed in recent deployments.
From startup to global agri-tech innovator
“With this breakthrough, we’re enabling agriculture to go beneath the surface and see what truly matters for crops and ecosystems,” said Shaw Wu, CEO of DATAYOO. “From Southeast Asia to Latin America, we believe our technology can help farmers, governments, and businesses make more informed decisions to ensure resilience, productivity, and food security.”
The company’s new Soil Moisture Parameter was presented to international audiences this September at Planet On the Road in Bali, an event hosted by the world’s largest Earth observation satellite provider. The showcase highlighted how collaborations between space technology and AI-driven platforms like FarmiSpace are opening new frontiers in precision agriculture.
The launch underscores DATAYOO’s commitment to advancing agricultural resilience, offering solutions that go beyond sensors and manual surveys, and supporting sustainable food systems worldwide.
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This article was produced by e27 in collaboration with DATAYOO
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