Key Concepts

This article explains the core concepts used throughout the Crop Risk platform.

Season Risk Levels

Every risk assessment in the platform is expressed using a five-level scale from Very Low to Very High, colour-coded for quick orientation.

The same scale and colour coding is used consistently throughout the platform - on the dashboard, on location cards, and in the hazard charts - so you always know what you are looking at.

Season Risk Score

The Season Risk Score is a number between 0 and 100 that expresses how risky the current season's weather stress is relative to the 30-year historical baseline. A score of 85 means the current season's accumulated stress exceeds 85% of all historical seasons to the same point in the year.

The score reflects stress accumulated season to date - it grows as the season progresses and more weather data comes in. For all crops, the season follows an agronomic calendar rather than a calendar year, so "season to date" refers to elapsed time since the agronomically defined season start, regardless of when that falls.

This historical framing is important: a score of 70 does not mean things are bad in an absolute sense. It means the current season is more stressed than 70% of past seasons at this point in the year. Context and crop knowledge still matter.

Example: The Season Risk Score for Arabica Coffee in Brazil reaches 82 in October - the peak of the flowering season. Flowering is the most price-sensitive phase for coffee: drought or heat stress during this window is historically linked to significant price increases 6 to 12 months later. A score of 82 tells you that the combination of weather stressors this season is more severe than 82% of the past 30 years at this stage. This is a signal to review your forward contract position and engage your suppliers - before the market reacts.

Weather hazards

The platform monitors four types of weather hazard, each of which affects crops in distinct ways and during specific growth phases.

• Heat stress - tracked via daily maximum temperature. High temperatures during reproductive phases cause pollen sterility, accelerated ripening, and yield reduction.
• Low temperature and frost - tracked via daily minimum temperature. Frost during sensitive phases, particularly after a crop has broken dormancy, can destroy flowers and cause irreversible yield loss.
• Drought - tracked via root-zone soil moisture relative to historical norms. Water deficit during critical phases impairs pollination, shortens grain filling, and reduces berry and fruit development.
• Excessive Rainfall - tracked via accumulated precipitation over a rolling window. Waterlogging causes root oxygen stress, promotes fungal disease, and disrupts field operations.

Crop phases

Crops are not equally sensitive to weather throughout their growing season. A frost during dormancy is very different from a frost during flowering. The platform divides each crop's growing season into distinct growth phases - such as establishment, flowering, fruit development, and harvest - and applies phase-specific thresholds to determine when weather conditions become concerning.

This means the same weather event may trigger a Critical alert during flowering but only a Warning alert - or no alert at all - during a less sensitive phase. Phase awareness is what makes the platform's risk signal crop-specific rather than generic weather monitoring.

Hazard alerts

When weather conditions at a monitored location cross a phase-specific threshold, the platform generates a hazard alert. Alerts are classified as Warning (conditions approaching stress levels) or Critical (conditions causing significant crop stress with likely yield impact). One alert can be generated per hazard per day per location. Alerts accumulate across the season as a weighted count: each Critical alert contributes 2 points and each Warning alert contributes 1. This weighted total is what gets compared against history to produce the risk score.

Risk Trend

In addition to the current season risk level, the platform tracks the risk trend - how much the Season Risk Score has changed over a recent period. The default window is the past seven days, but this can be adjusted. A worsening trend means hazard alerts are increasing relative to historical norms; an improving trend means conditions are easing. This helps distinguish between a stable elevated risk and one that is actively deteriorating.