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We combine socioeconomic data from a large‐scale household survey with historical climate data to map the climate sensitivity of availability and access dimensions of food security in Mali, and infer the ways in which at‐risk communities may have been impacted by persistent climatic shift. Thirty years after 1982–1984, the period of most intense drought during the protracted late 20th century drying of the Sahel, the impact of drought on livelihoods and food security is still recognizable in the Sahelian center of Mali. This impact is expressed in the larger fraction of households in this Sahelian center of the country—the agro‐ecological transition between pastoralism in the north, and sedentary agriculture in the south—who practice agriculture but not livestock raising, despite environmental conditions that are suitable to their combination. These households have lower food security and rely more frequently on …