Terms of Service

Last updated: 1 July 2026

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) form a legal agreement between you and The Farmland Atlas (“we”, “us”, “our”), a personal project run as a sole proprietorship, Kiss Industries, based in Switzerland, and govern your access to and use of The Farmland Atlas: our website, interactive map, scores and data layers, the API, and all related services (together, the “Service”). Please read them carefully. They contain important provisions about the nature of our data, the limits of our liability, and how disputes are handled.

1. Agreement and acceptance

By accessing or using the Service or creating an account, you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated here by reference. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a legally binding contract to use the Service. By using it you represent that you meet these requirements. If you use the Service on behalf of a company or other organisation, you represent that you are authorised to bind that organisation to these Terms, and “you” refers to both you and that organisation.

3. Definitions

Service: everything described in the opening paragraph above.
Field note: the detailed viability breakdown you open for a specific location on the map.
Content: the scores, composites, map layers, text, design and other material we make available through the Service.
Source data: the third-party datasets described in section 11 that we combine to produce our Content.

4. Description of the Service

The Farmland Atlas is an informational farmland-viability atlas. It scores places on Earth for long-term farmland viability using modelled composites of climate, water, soil, terrain, hazard, institutional and economic data drawn from public scientific and statistical sources. It is a research and exploration tool that helps you understand and compare locations. It does not list properties for sale, broker transactions, or represent that any land is available, suitable or lawful to acquire or use.

5. Not investment, financial, legal, tax or agronomic advice

The Service is provided for general information and research only. It is not investment, financial, legal, tax, agronomic or any other form of professional advice, and must not be relied on as the sole basis for buying, selling, leasing, financing, developing or farming any land, or for any other decision. Land and agricultural activities carry significant risk, including total loss. Any decision you make is your own, taken at your own risk. You should obtain independent professional advice, inspect locations in person, and conduct your own due diligence before acting.

6. Data accuracy and modelled estimates

Our scores are modelled estimates, not measurements. They are produced by combining third-party source data with our own compositing and weighting choices, which involve assumptions and simplifications. Please keep the following in mind:

Future-horizon figures (for example, projections for 2050, 2070 or 2100) are scenario projections, not predictions of what will happen.
Source data may be dated, coarse in resolution, incomplete, or superseded, and errors can propagate into our Content.
Conditions on the ground at any specific location may differ materially from what a score suggests.
The Content is provided “as is” and “as available”, without any warranty of accuracy, completeness, currency, or fitness for a particular purpose.

You are responsible for verifying anything on which you intend to rely.

7. Accounts and security

Some features require an account, which you can create using Google sign-in or an email magic link. You agree to provide accurate information and to keep your account secure. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account, whether or not you authorised it. Please notify us promptly at [email protected] if you suspect any unauthorised use. We may refuse, suspend or reclaim any account or username at our reasonable discretion.

8. Access and fair use

The Service is free to use. Without signing in you may open a limited number of location field notes; once you sign in, field notes become unlimited. Access is offered on a fair-use basis for ordinary personal and professional research. We may set, change or enforce reasonable limits to keep the Service available and to prevent abuse, and we may withdraw access from anyone who circumvents those limits or the sign-in requirement.

9. API and acceptable use

Registered users may access the Service through our API, subject to any documentation, keys and limits we publish. Whether you use the API, the app or any other access method, you agree that you will not:

scrape, crawl, harvest or bulk-download the Service or its Content except through the API within any documented limits;
resell, sublicense, redistribute or otherwise make the Content available to third parties as a dataset or service;
exceed published rate limits, share or misuse API keys, or circumvent access controls or usage limits;
reverse-engineer, decompile or attempt to derive the source code, models or weighting behind the Service, except to the limited extent this restriction is prohibited by law;
use the Content or outputs to build, train or improve a competing dataset, model or product;
use the Service unlawfully, to infringe the rights of others, or in any way that could damage, disable or impair it.

10. Intellectual property

As between you and us, we (and our licensors) own the Service and our Content, including the composites, the scoring model and its weightings, the interface, the design, and the text. Source data remains the property of the respective providers and is used under their licences (see section 11). Subject to your compliance with these Terms, we grant you a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive and non-transferable licence to access and use the Service and Content for your own lawful research and decision-making. All rights not expressly granted are reserved. You may not remove or obscure any attribution, copyright or proprietary notices.

11. Third-party data and services

Our Content is derived from third-party source data, and the Service relies on third-party providers. Your use of the Service is also subject to the terms and licences of those providers. Source data includes, among others: WorldClim, FAO/HWSD, ISRIC SoilGrids, WRI Aqueduct, GEM (Global Energy Monitor), the Malaria Atlas Project, JRC GHS-POP, the World Bank, the UN World Population Prospects, UCDP, OurAirports and GeoNames. Our service providers include Google (authentication), Resend (transactional email, EU servers), Kit (newsletter and marketing email, EU servers), Cloudflare (serving the static map tiles and content delivery) and DataFast (privacy-first, cookieless analytics). We do not control third-party data or services and are not responsible for them.

12. Sponsorship and no endorsement

Some placements within the Service are paid sponsorships. Sponsorships are clearly commercial placements and are not endorsements, recommendations or verifications by us of any sponsor or their offering. Any dealings you have with a sponsor are solely between you and that sponsor.

13. User conduct

You agree to use the Service responsibly and lawfully. In particular, you agree not to: upload or transmit malicious code; probe, scan or test the security of the Service without authorisation; interfere with other users’ access; misrepresent your identity or affiliation; or use the Service to violate any applicable law, regulation or third-party right.

14. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service and all Content are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that the Content is accurate, complete or current. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of these exclusions may not apply to you.

15. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill or business opportunity, or for any loss arising from decisions made in reliance on the Service or its Content, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such loss. Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or 100 US dollars. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or under mandatory consumer-protection law.

16. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold us and our team harmless from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to your misuse of the Service, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of any law or third-party right.

17. Suspension and termination

We may suspend, restrict or terminate your access to the Service (in whole or in part) if you breach these Terms, if we reasonably believe it is necessary to protect the Service, other users or third parties, or to comply with law. You may stop using the Service at any time. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination (including sections 5, 6, 10, 14, 15 and 16) will survive.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will post the updated Terms here with a new “last updated” date and, where appropriate, provide additional notice. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms. If you do not agree, please stop using the Service.

19. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them are governed by the laws of Switzerland, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, and the courts of Switzerland have jurisdiction over any dispute. This does not override the mandatory consumer-protection rights of consumers in the EU or EEA where those rights apply: if you are such a consumer, nothing in this section deprives you of the protection of the mandatory laws of your country of residence, and you may also be able to bring proceedings in the courts there.

20. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, that provision will be limited or removed to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

21. Entire agreement

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede any prior agreements or understandings on that subject. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.

22. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email us at [email protected].