Privacy Policy

This policy explains how we handle information when you visit farmerstage.com, create a FarmerStage account, use the marketplace, communicate with us by phone, text message or in-platform messaging, or are contacted by our team as a business prospect.

FarmerStage is a business-to-business (“B2B”) platform. Most information we handle relates to businesses and to the individuals who act on behalf of those businesses. Where applicable law treats business-contact information as personal information, this policy applies to it.

FarmerStage is not directed to consumers or to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Gurusmart Technology LLC is responsible for the information described in this policy. Buyers and suppliers who receive information from each other through a transaction are independently responsible for their own use of it.

Account and identity information. Name, email address, password credentials handled by our authentication provider, account role (buyer, supplier, administrator, field representative), email-verification status, sign-in events and password-reset activity.

Business profile information. Company or farm name, business type, business addresses, contact person, phone numbers, description, certifications you choose to upload, storefront images and product listings, and the verification status we assign to the account.

Transaction information. Purchase requests (RFQs), supplier quotes, accepted orders, quantities, units, prices, platform commission amounts, order status history, invoices, payment status, refunds, payouts and dispute records.

Payment information. Payment card and bank details are collected and stored by our payment processor, Stripe, and its Stripe Connect service — not by FarmerStage. We receive and store payment identifiers, amounts, authorization, hold and release status, connected-account and payout status, and refund or dispute outcomes.

Delivery information. Assigned driver name and contact details, shipment and tracking records, scan events, delivery status timestamps, location data reported by the assigned driver’s device while a delivery is in progress, delivery photographs and other proof of handover, delivery messages, incident reports, and delivery confirmation codes (stored only as an irreversible hash and cleared when the delivery is complete).

Communications information. In-platform messages and attachments; text messages you send to or receive from the FarmerStage business line; inbound and outbound calls placed or received through the Platform, including call metadata (time, direction, duration, disposition, which staff member handled the call); voicemail recordings; call recordings where recording applies; and machine-generated transcriptions of voicemail or recorded calls. See section 6.

Automated front-desk information. Where our automated front desk (“Angel”) answers a call, we record the menu selections made, the intake details the caller provides (such as name, business, callback number and reason for calling), and any callback request created.

Prospect and outreach information. For business development we maintain records about agricultural businesses, including business name, business address, publicly listed business phone numbers and websites, publicly available business information, our own outreach notes, call and message history, pipeline stage, follow-ups and do-not-contact status. This information concerns businesses and is sourced from publicly available business listings, our own interactions, and information a business gives us directly.

Field survey information. Where a FarmerStage field representative conducts a supplier or buyer visit or market survey, we record the business details, survey answers and visit notes collected during that visit.

Technical and device information. IP address, browser and device characteristics, pages viewed, actions taken in the app, error and diagnostic logs, and connection diagnostics for browser calling (network path, connection state and audio statistics) used to troubleshoot call quality and failures.

Cookies and local storage. See section 9.

Directly from you; from your business colleagues who invite you or act for your company; from publicly available business sources for prospect records; automatically from your device when you use the Platform; from our service providers (payment, messaging, telephony, email, hosting); and from the other party to a transaction you participate in.

• To create and administer accounts, authenticate users and protect account security.
• To operate the marketplace: publish listings, match buyers and suppliers, process RFQs, quotes and orders, and calculate quantities, prices and platform commission.
• To process payments through our payment processor, including authorization, holding payment until the applicable release condition is met, releasing or refunding payment, and transferring supplier payouts.
• To coordinate shipment, driver assignment, tracking, handover confirmation and proof of delivery.
• To review and administer transaction disputes, including reviewing evidence submitted by both sides.
• To communicate with you about your account, transactions and support requests by email, in-platform notification, phone and, where you have opted in, text message.
• To operate our inbound and outbound business communications, including the automated front desk, voicemail, callbacks and call handling by staff.
• To carry out business development outreach to agricultural businesses using business contact information, and to honor do-not-contact requests.
• To monitor, secure, debug and improve the Platform, and to detect and prevent fraud, abuse and misuse.
• To keep business, accounting and tax records and to comply with applicable law and respond to lawful requests.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for third-party advertising. We do not use your transaction or communications content to make automated decisions that produce legal effects about you without human involvement.

Legal bases. Where a law such as the EU or UK GDPR applies to a user outside the United States, our processing rests on performance of a contract, our legitimate business interests in operating and securing a B2B marketplace and conducting business outreach, compliance with legal obligations, and consent where consent is required.

Calls. FarmerStage places and receives business calls through a telephony provider. Call metadata is recorded in our systems. Where a call is recorded, the recording and any machine-generated transcription are stored in our systems and are accessible to authorized FarmerStage staff.

AI-assisted outbound calls. Some FarmerStage recruitment calls to agricultural businesses are placed by an AI-generated voice assistant (“Sarah”). These calls are not audio-recorded, but the conversation is automatically transcribed into text. The transcript, a summary and the call outcome are stored in our systems, linked to the business record, and are accessible only to authorized FarmerStage staff. They are used to follow up as agreed, to honour do-not-contact requests and to review call quality. Saying you do not want to be called during such a call stops further recruitment calls to that number.

Voicemail. If a caller leaves a voicemail, the recording, its duration, the caller number and any transcription are stored and are accessible to authorized staff, and may be linked to the related business record.

Automated front desk. Calls may be answered by an automated attendant that provides fixed FarmerStage information, offers menu options, takes intake details and creates callback requests. It does not access account, order, payment or dispute records, and it does not generate answers beyond the fixed information FarmerStage has approved.

Notice and consent. Notice regarding recording. Where a call may be recorded, we play a spoken recording notice at the start of the call before recording begins. Voice messages you choose to leave are recorded and may be automatically transcribed. If you do not wish to be recorded, you can end the call or contact us by email instead. Recording and consent requirements may vary by jurisdiction.

Text messages. FarmerStage operates a transactional SMS program for United States mobile numbers. Opting in is optional, is never required to use FarmerStage, and is unchecked by default. Consent is stored against your record with the date, time and the exact wording you agreed to. Reply STOP to stop messages, START to resume, and HELP for help. Message frequency varies by activity; message and data rates may apply. Mobile information and SMS consent are not shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes, and no mobile information is sold, rented or shared for advertising. Numbers are disclosed to our messaging provider solely to deliver the messages you asked for.

• The other party to your transaction, limited to what is needed to quote, fulfill, deliver and confirm the order.
• Assigned drivers, limited to the delivery information needed to complete the handover.
• Stripe, our payment processor, for payment processing, connected-account onboarding, payouts, refunds and payment disputes.
• Our telephony and messaging provider, to place, receive, record where applicable, and deliver calls, voicemail and text messages.
• Our email provider, to deliver account, transaction and support email.
• Our hosting, database and authentication providers, which store and protect Platform data.
• Professional advisers, auditors and insurers, where reasonably necessary.
• Authorities and other parties where we are legally required to disclose, or where disclosure is necessary to investigate fraud, abuse or a threat to safety or to enforce our Terms.
• A successor in connection with a merger, financing, acquisition or sale of assets, subject to this policy.

Service providers act on our instructions and are not permitted to use the information for their own purposes.

Supplier storefronts, product listings and business profile information you choose to publish are public. Buyer delivery addresses, phone numbers, exact delivery locations, driver identity, delivery photographs, payment details and communications content are not shown on public pages, including public shipment tracking pages, which show only limited status information for the tracking number.

We use storage that is strictly necessary to run the Platform — authentication session, cart, consent choice and security features — and this cannot be turned off. Product and campaign measurement is optional and off until you accept it in our cookie preferences dialog; you can change or withdraw that choice at any time using the “Cookie preferences” link in the footer. Declining has no effect on your ability to use FarmerStage.

We keep information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy — to operate the Platform, maintain transaction and business records, resolve disputes, prevent fraud and abuse, enforce our agreements, meet tax, accounting and regulatory obligations, and comply with applicable law. Retention periods therefore differ by record type, and records connected to a transaction, dispute, payout or legal obligation are kept longer than routine operational records.

Specific rules currently in effect:

• Delivery confirmation codes are stored only as an irreversible hash and are cleared once the delivery is complete.
• Transcripts of AI-assisted calls are kept for 12 months after the call and then deleted, unless they are subject to a legal or dispute hold. The call date, outcome and any do-not-contact request are kept as part of our compliance records.
• Do-not-call and email unsubscribe requests are kept permanently so they continue to be honoured.
• Browser-calling access tokens and delivery or driver links are short-lived and expire automatically.

Other than the rules above, we do not state a fixed number of years for other record types. Retention is governed by the purposes above and by the legal obligations that apply to each record.

We restrict access to sensitive records at the database level, require authentication and role-based permissions for administrative access, keep provider credentials on the server side only, verify the authenticity of requests to our telephony and system endpoints, and apply rate limits to sensitive staff actions such as call setup, messaging, recording access and data exports. We store delivery confirmation codes only as hashes. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we do not represent that the Platform is immune from all risk. Tell us immediately if you believe your account has been compromised.

• Review and edit your account, business profile and contact details in your dashboard.
• Turn SMS consent off at any time, in the app or by replying STOP.
• Change cookie and measurement preferences from the footer link.
• Ask us to access, correct, export or delete information about you, or to stop business outreach to your business. Businesses may also ask to be placed on our do-not-contact list.

Depending on where you are located, you may have additional rights under laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act or the EU and UK GDPR, including rights of access, correction, deletion, portability, restriction and objection, and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising them. We will verify requests and may keep information we are required or permitted to retain. To make a request, contact us using section 15.

FarmerStage is operated from the United States and information is processed and stored in the United States. If you use FarmerStage from another country, you understand that information is transferred to the United States, where data-protection law differs from your own.

We may update this policy. Material changes will be posted on this page with a new date and, where legally required, notified to you.

Privacy questions and requests: support@farmerstage.com.

Security reports, responsible disclosure and abuse: security@farmerstage.com.

Gurusmart Technology LLC, 1500 John F Kennedy Blvd, Suite 450 PMB 20, Philadelphia, PA 19102, United States.