Agromonitoring (Agro API)
The Agromonitoring Agro API is a satellite-based crop monitoring and agricultural weather API developed by the OpenWeather team, providing farm field monitoring through satellite imagery analysis and integrated meteorological data. The platform is specifically designed for agritech developers and precision agriculture application builders who need to combine satellite vegetation health monitoring with weather intelligence in a single API integration, covering registered farm field polygons across Nigeria and globally.
The Agro API centers on a field polygon management system: developers register farm field boundaries as GeoJSON polygons through the API, and the platform automatically monitors those fields with available satellite imagery, computing vegetation indices and weather observations for each registered location. This automated monitoring eliminates the need for agritech developers to manage satellite data pipelines, handle image processing, or schedule individual imagery requests — the platform handles all of this automatically for registered fields.
NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) is the primary crop health metric delivered by Agromonitoring. NDVI values derived from satellite imagery measure green vegetation density and are directly related to crop biomass and canopy health. For Nigerian farms monitoring maize, cassava, rice, sorghum, or vegetable crops, seasonal NDVI time series track the crop growth curve from emergence through canopy closure and eventually senescence. The Agro API provides NDVI statistics — mean, minimum, maximum, and standard deviation — for each registered field at each available satellite observation date.
Beyond NDVI, Agromonitoring provides EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) and NRI (Normalized Red Index) for crop condition assessment. EVI is less sensitive to atmospheric effects and soil background than NDVI, making it more reliable in conditions with high aerosol loading — a consideration for northern Nigerian zones where harmattan dust can affect optical satellite observations. Providing multiple indices allows Nigerian agritech developers to select the most appropriate measure for their specific crop monitoring context.
The satellite imagery underlying Agromonitoring's vegetation indices comes from Landsat-7, Landsat-8, Sentinel-2, and MODIS constellations, providing a range of spatial and temporal resolution options. Sentinel-2's 10-meter resolution and approximately 5-day revisit provides detailed field-level monitoring with high temporal frequency. Landsat's 30-meter resolution and 16-day revisit offers coarser but longer historical coverage. MODIS at 250-500 meter resolution provides rapid updates for broad-area monitoring. Applications can access imagery from multiple sensors through the same API, selecting the sensor appropriate for each monitoring need.
Weather data integration within the Agro API provides agricultural meteorological intelligence for each registered field location: current conditions, hourly and daily forecasts, and historical weather records. Precipitation data, temperature, wind speed, humidity, and solar radiation are available for field coordinates, enabling correlation of crop health observations with weather history and providing agricultural decision support that goes beyond vegetation index monitoring alone.
Soil data endpoints within Agromonitoring provide estimated soil temperature and soil moisture for field locations, derived from models that combine weather observations with soil property information. For Nigerian farmers making planting timing decisions or irrigation management choices, soil condition data alongside crop health monitoring provides a more complete agronomic picture than either data type alone.
For Nigerian precision agriculture companies building commercial farm management products, Agromonitoring provides a cost-effective API starting point with a free tier that covers limited field area, allowing proof-of-concept development and early customer pilots without initial API costs. As commercial scale grows, paid tiers accommodate larger field portfolios and higher API call volumes. The OpenWeather backing provides confidence that the platform has stable commercial infrastructure and developer support resources that align with the needs of Nigerian agritech companies building products they intend to scale.