The goal of this book was to develop multipliable analytical methods and procedures to assess quantitatively how climate affects current agricultural systems in Africa, predict how these systems may be affected in future by climate change and suggest what role adaptation should play.

A highly ambitious project in which 44 authors and many more who were involved in detailed data collection and analysis provided six main chapters: Introduction and Rationale: Objectives, Methodology and Organisation: Methods and Models Used; Country Analyses; Regional Analysis: Summary and Conclusions, and two annexes: Literature Review on Adaptation in Agriculture, and the Household Questionnaire.

Methodologies used included cross-sectional Ricardian analysis, a structural Ricardian analysis, CROPWAT and CROPWATCC, and a farm household survey which was conducted in 11 countries with a total of 9598 households. Weather data, crops, livestock, soils and hydrological data were also collected from each country.

Synthesizing so much data for the whole continent in one, relatively short, book is very difficult and has not been entirely successful. The graphs and diagrams are not always clear and the continent-wide maps are not very effective at such a scale.

The outcome should be of interest to many followers of modelling on this scale, but the most interesting information could be on the amount of adaptation that farmers have been undertaking. The concluding chapter is too brief and superficial to be of any general value and reflects a mindset embedded in the conventional economic order and does not acknowledge the need for alternative economies and ecologies that might be based on farmer knowledge and new partnerships for innovation and change.