Agricultural policy in Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire has failed to develop subsistence farming, which provides food security and employment for millions of Africans, particularly the majority of African women. Climate change is now threatening the livelihood of millions of farmers in the subsistence economy. This article argues that strengthening the subsistence economy will improve farmers’ capacity to mitigate the deleterious effects of climate change on fragile rural economies. This will require a change in the dominant agricultural policies as well as in the implementation strategies to orient them to adopt programs that can address micro-farming on a large scale.