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• The crop yield deviations are more susceptible to change in temperature. • The level of climate change induced risk amounts to 1.3-5.3% of the average yields. • The risk leads to a considerable change in cropland use in Chinese farms. • Changing cropland use structure is an effective strategy of mitigating the risk. This paper estimates the climate change induced risk for 14 crops measured by the yield deviation using the panel data from seven counties in Jiangsu province in China from 1998 to 2017, and then investigates the risk effect on cropland use in a representative farm using the survey data and the MOTAD model. The results show that the crop yield deviation are more susceptible to change in temperature than that in sunlight and precipitation. The crop-specific risk level amounts to 1.3–5.3% of the average yields. The risk leads to reducing the cultivated areas by 6% and also causes a significant change in cropland use. As an effective adaptation strategy of mitigating the climate change induced risk, the farms should reduce the total cultivated area by about 15% in comparison with the observed situation while the cropland use structure should be adjusted accordingly. More cropland should be allocated to wheat, peanut and cotton but the other crop areas should be reduced or maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]