CERES was built because the time between when a food crisis becomes predictable and when help is in place is measured in lives. Pre-positioning food aid, mobilising logistics and securing emergency funding takes 60 to 90 days, so a warning has to come at least that early to be acted on.
CERES is an open, falsifiable, probabilistic forecasting system that synthesises public rainfall, vegetation, conflict, food security and market data into 90-day famine risk predictions, designed to give humanitarian responders that lead time.
It is free. It is open. Its methodology is published. Its predictions are timestamped and graded against outcomes. It is built to be scrutinised.
CERES is built on the Hypothesis Generation Engine (HGE), developed by Northflow Technologies AS.
HGE is designed to do one thing: synthesise multi-source signals into ranked, evidenced, falsifiable hypotheses. It is not a dashboard. It is not a threshold alert system. It is a system that reads the evidence and tells you, with stated uncertainty, what it thinks is happening and why.
CERES is HGE Adapter #5. Each adapter applies the same hypothesis engine to a different domain. The same rigour. The same calibration standards. The same commitment to auditable reasoning.
CERES is a research and early warning tool. It is not an operational replacement for IPC field assessments, humanitarian programme decisions, or famine declarations.
Only the IPC Global Platform, through its established cadre process and field verification, has the mandate to declare famine (IPC Phase 5). A CERES Tier I prediction indicates a high probability of reaching IPC Phase 3+: a signal for preparedness, not a declaration.
CERES predictions should be interpreted alongside, not instead of, FEWS NET situation reports, WFP VAM assessments, and field-based humanitarian intelligence.
Every design decision in CERES, from the sensitivity intervals to the publicly timestamped prediction ledger to the published limitations section, is made with institutional reviewers in mind.
The system is designed to be reviewed by WFP technical staff, FAO analysts, EU ECHO programme officers, academic food security researchers, and independent funders.
The published run archive starts on 7 April 2026. Predictions are timestamped and graded against the FEWS NET proxy at T+90 days. The model's expert-informed priors were specified with reference to 87 IPC transition records (2011-2023, 31 countries). Prospective forward validation is ongoing and publicly visible in the Validation Ledger. The full methodology is published at arXiv:2603.09425.
CERES is an open system seeking institutional partners for validation, deployment, and co-development. If you represent a humanitarian organisation, research institution, or funding body, we welcome your engagement.
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