ABSTRACT
Agriculture is undoubtedly one of the most vulnerable sectors in the world to climate change (IPCC 2007, Jarvis et al. 2010), and several studies have already predicted that global agricultural production could suffer progressive yield losses by the end of the century (Lobell et al. 2008, 2011; Challinor and Wheeler 2008; Challinor et al. 2009; Thornton et al. 2011). While an increasing number of studies illustrate the likely impact of long-term changes in the global climate on regional farming systems, there is a noticeable shortage of impact studies examining the vulnerability of agricultural systems in small island states (Nurse and Moore 2005; Tompkins et al. 2005; Mimura et al. 2007; Nurse et al. 2014). This is despite the fact that small island states are considered to be amongst the most vulnerable countries in the world to the adverse impacts of global climate change and are also regarded as major food security hotspots. This is quite evident in the case of the insular Caribbean, which is expected to be amongst the earliest and most impacted by climate change over the course of this century (Pulwarty et al. 2010; Simpson et al. 2009; Trotz and Lindo 2013).
