This report examines how climate change is impacting agriculture and threatening national and global food systems, particularly in climate hotspots, and how these trends are projected to intensify over the coming decades. The report defines and details transformative adaptation for agriculture and why such longer-term, systemic approaches are needed to protect the lives and livelihoods of millions of small-scale farmers and herders. Transformative adaptation in agriculture promotes long-term resilience by continually shifting the geographical locations where specific types of crops and livestock are produced, aligning agricultural production with changing landscapes and ecosystems, and/or introducing resilience-building production methods and technologies across value chains.

The report presents evidence to support a call for urgent action by:

Agricultural research organizations, to build and share knowledge regarding transformative approaches;
Governments, to integrate this knowledge into plans and policies by establishing and implementing transformative pathways; and
Funding entities, to increase financial support for agricultural adaptation and design sustainable financing mechanisms with the right incentives and disincentives to support transformative adaptation.

Strategic investments in resilient food systems are crucial to manage intensifying climate change impacts and feed a global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. Planning for transformative adaptation should center on inclusive, participatory processes that engage a diverse range of stakeholders who may otherwise be marginalized in decision-making, such as women, youth and Indigenous peoples.

Key Findings:

Strategic investments in resilient food systems are crucial to manage intensifying climate change impacts and feed a global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050.
In some geographical hotspots climate change is already undermining food systems, even where incremental adaptation measures are ramping up.
Anticipating, planning for, and expanding financing options through transformative adaptation is critical to averting and minimizing loss and damage; enhancing global food security; reducing risks of displacement, conflict and crisis; and avoiding maladaptation.
The authors define transformative adaptation in agriculture as promoting long-term resilience by continually shifting the geographical locations where specific types of crops and livestock are produced, aligning agricultural production with changing landscapes and ecosystems, and/or introducing resilience-building production methods and technologies across value chains.
Planning for transformative adaptation should center on inclusive, participatory processes that engage a diverse range of stakeholders who may otherwise be marginalized in decision-making, such as women, youth and Indigenous peoples.

The report presents evidence to support a call for urgent action by:
Agricultural research organizations, to build and share knowledge regarding transformative approaches;
Governments, to integrate this knowledge into plans and policies by establishing and implementing transformative pathways; and
Funding entities, to increase financial support for agricultural adaptation and design sustainable financing mechanisms with the right incentives and disincentives to support transformative adaptation.

The report highlights how climate change will negatively impact food systems, particularly in climate hotspots such as semi-arid and desert regions in India and sub-Saharan Africa, coastal rice paddy regions in Bangladesh and Vietnam, and glacier and snow-fed agricultural areas in Peru and the Himalayas. It finds that incremental adaptation, while important, will be insufficient to avert dramatic increases in hunger, poverty, and displacement over the next 30 years. Instead, greater commitments to plan, fund, and implement transformative adaptation measures will be essential to ensure food security.

As this report illustrates, transformative approaches to agricultural adaptation will mean continually shifting the locations of where specific types of crops and livestock are produced to areas with more suitable climatic conditions – for example, grain farmers in Ethiopia moving staple crops such as maize to higher elevations as temperatures rise.