I personally would have a very hard time but still would be able to survive. But many smallholder coffee producers in San Juan del Río Coco in Northern Nicaragua would be left without their main and only source of income if they were not able to grow coffee anymore. Even if this scenario might turn into a reality in a year as far as 2050 the possibility is real and the chances quite big. These were the outcomes of the vulnerability analysis presented by Peter Läderach, CIAT Nicaragua, in the session denominated “Communities and climate change” on the third round of oral presentations on the second day of Tropentag 2013, held under the chairmanship of Mr. Steffen Abele from the University of Applied Forest Sciences. In his presentation of the study “Climate change adaptation, mitigation and livelihood benefits in coffee production: where are the synergies?”, Dr. Läderach showed that the coffee production area in the region will suffer a dramatic reduction by 2050 due to changes in climatic suitability. However, a complex analysis without possible strategies to overcome the challenges can not help small-scale farmers on the ground to increase climate change adaptability and improve their livelihoods. If the right measures are not implemented at the right time, by 2050 it might be too late to react! Therefore, an important component of the research was the involvement of a key player in the coffee value chain: the coffee roasting company. The striking results of the vulnerability analysis were presented to the roasting company, posing at the same time a challenging question: “Why don’t you do carbon insetting and pay farmers to sequester carbon through agroecological practices helping to avoid biodiversity loss and soil erosion instead of balancing your carbon emissions through carbon offsetting?”. To find out more about the answers to this question and other agroecological aspects we interviewed Dr. Läderach after the session. Have a look! More information on http://dapa.ciat.cgiar.org/synergies-between-climate-change-adaptation-a... And it is not all about coffee A total of six research topics addressing climate change in different contexts were presented during the “Communities and climate change” session. The presentations covered a wide range of topics like: 1) the application of the “Ricardian model” by Krishna Reddy Kakumanu to assess the impact of climate change in crop revenue in the Krishna River Basin in India, where 66% of the districts have a high to very high vulnerability; 2) the analysis of the impact of sea level rise on Lagos State, the economic heart of Nigeria, where the richest areas turned out to be the most vulnerable ones according to Muhammed Oyinlola; 3) the use of a PRA approach by Ms. Aiveen Donnelly to assess the vulnerability context of women in Ethiopia, where women are largely dependent on obtaining assets through marriage and livestock as an important asset for income generation activities is under stress due to climate change; 4)the use of a mathematical programming model by Ujjal Tiwari to predict cropping patterns in three districts of Nepal, a country where 65% of the population is engaged in agriculture and 5) the feasibility analysis conducted by Adrián Flores to find out if REDD+ could be a solution to the land-use management and forest degradation issues in the municipality of Cachoeiras de Macacu, Brazil.