Extreme weather is one of the primary drivers of crop failures around the world. Crop failures – the total or near-total loss of a farm or region’s crops – greatly reduce the availability of food and can have dire consequences for food security. They also reduce the need for agricultural labour, cutting off critical income streams for farmworkers and further exacerbating food insecurity. As a result, predicting such crop failures is a crucial component of food security early-warning systems.