African Agriculture in 2050: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options.

Impacts of climate change on African agriculture are potentially important but highly uncertain, as are the potential benefits of different adaptation strategies. Refining these uncertainties will play a key role in fostering effective adaptation. A statistical analysis of panel data on crop yields since 1960 was conducted in an attempt to better constrain estimates of potential impacts for major staple crops. We find that this approach reduces uncertainties over previous approaches, to the point where impacts for maize, sorghum, millet, and groundnuts are significantly negative and robust across different model specifications.  These results can be helpful for prioritizing adaptation efforts within the continent, as they show differences between crops and regions. We also present an analysis of adaptation options, namely planting date and crop variety shifts, using process-based crop models.