Agriculture is the biggest single industry in many developing countries of the world. Benin is a West African country in which agriculture plays an important economic role. The agricultural sector employs about 70% of the population and contributes to 39% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Awoye, 2015) of Benin. It also provides about 88% of the country’s export earnings (Awoye, 2015). The lack of modern farming technologies, poor soil, land degradation, and the rapid population growth constitute the challenges that Benin agriculture is facing. In Benin, the farmers rely highly on the rain–fed agriculture for crop productions. The high dependence on rain-fed agriculture combined with low socioeconomic development expose subsistence agriculture farmers to external shocks such as climate variability and climate change impacts. Empirical evidence reveals that the increasing of global temperature is likely to boost agricultural production in the temperate region, and it is expected to reduce yields in the tropical regions of the world (WTO –UNEP, 2009). Studies conducted by Afouda (1990), Houndénou (1999), Ogouwalé (2006)and Boko (1988) cited by Tidjani (2012) , revealed that there is increasing of minimum temperature and agricultural season length is shortening in Benin. Some regional climate models predict a decrease of annual rainfall up to 30% by 2050 in Benin with a significant within- region differences (Paeth et al., 2008). This change will decrease yield production already challenged by limited access to capital, markets, infrastructure and technology. Benin has already experienced food insecurity and climate change will exacerbate it through the increase in frequency of adverse weather events. The Northwest part of Benin (Atacora) is characterized by a unimodal rainfall regime (peak in August). This means the district is more heavily exposed to the impact of climate change. A well–known study in this respect is the one carried out on farmers’ perception and impact of climate change on production and yam varietal diversity in Northwest of Benin (Loko et al., 2013). Fewresearch works have been conducted in that on the impacts of climate change on the major staple food crops and farmers’ adaptation strategies to this change in the district. This present study examines the impact of climate change on major staple food crops (yam, maize, sorghum, and rice and bean productions) and farmers’ adaptation strategies to this change in Atacora. The section 2 explaines the methodogy used to achieve the goal of this study. The section 3 shows the results of the analysis.
