Crop Shifting in Africa: Opportunities for Climate Change Adaptation

Agriculture in Africa faces increasing risks from climate change, yet opportunities for adaptation remain poorly quantified. Using CropSuite, a high-resolution, open-source crop suitability model that integrates inter-annual climate variability and adaptive growing periods, we assess climate change impacts on 48 staple and cash crops across Africa under CMIP6 SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios until 2060. We find that climate change will lead to substantial declines in highly suitable cropland for the predominantly used crops today, particularly in already food insecure regions, such as Sudan. These crops are projected to degrade into moderate or marginal suitability, threatening food security across large parts of the continent if cropping patterns remain unchanged. We therefore identify “opportunity crops”, including both staple and cash crops that gain suitability under future climates, thereby enabling crop shifting and region-specific adaptation, climate-resilient diversification, and sustainable intensification of African agriculture. Through the combined consideration of climate impacts and adaptation responses at 1km resolution, this study provides a detailed multi-crop assessment of Africa’s future agro-climatic suitability for climate-informed and solution-oriented agricultural planning.