Transparent famine models I: Counting calories

...some predictions estimate that there may be hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths from famine in Sudan in the coming year or two.

...

In my research so far into models predicting famine numbers, however, I have been surprised at the extent to which the models are not transparent. That is, when two models disagree, with one claiming very high death estimates and others predicting more limited famine (there is clearly a famine already underway in some parts of Sudan), it’s unclear what drives these differences. If the data and code were publicly available, we could compare the models, see where they differ, and then identify which of these differences are in turn responsible for the different predictions they make. So that’s what I’ve set out to do, with hopes that I will find some fellow travellers along the way.