Situate within new institutionalism literature, this paper builds a complex system model of institutional analysis for adaptive governance. This model combines Young’s institutional environmental analysis method (2005), elements of subsequent environmental governance projects models, and ideas of multiple institutional levels and drivers.

By applying the model, policy instruments are identified that build agricultural producer livelihoods improving their adaptive capacity to respond to climate change and drought. In relation to three case studies in Canada, Chile, and Argentina, policy instruments that deliver co benefits to improve agricultural producer technological, social, human, economic, and natural capital include crop insurance, income stabilization instruments, farm water infrastructure grants, environmental farm planning (improving soil management), drought predictions and alerts, and watershed management plans.

Missing instruments included international instruments of mitigation and adaptation through disaster risk reduction, climate change mitigation instruments, and involvement of people in review and assessment of instruments in the context of climate change (iterative anticipatory governance).

The model allows for instrument redesign through interdisciplinary interaction with the agricultural and policy community, reviewing climate change scenarios, identifying missing and weak instruments and dimensions of adaptive governance.