Climate change is one of the most serious challenges that the world is facing in the 21^st century. Because the farmers depend on the nature resource, they face various negative impacts of climate change, particularly in the high-frigid ecological vulnerable region. Consequently, climate change has strengthened the livelihood vulnerability of these farmers. The farmers themselves have devised various adaptation strategies to deal with climate change. Hence, it is important to determine how effective adaptation strategies are, and to assess their adaptation strategies. The Gannan Plateau was selected as a case study, and through a stratified random sampling survey and participatory rural appraisal, 548 households were investigated. We analyzed the characteristic of the farmer's climate change adaptation strategies, evaluated the effects of these strategies with a fuzzy integrative evaluate method, and determine the most effective adaptation strategy with a multi-criteria decision-making analysis. The results showed that:(1) Most farmers of the Gannan Plateau combine different strategies for dealing with climate change, with 65.30% of the households being farmers and 30.21% employing the ‘expansive and accommodating’ strategy. Furthermore, the choice in adaptation strategy of the farmers differed per area, In the ‘pure pasturing area’, the strategy most used was to reduce the livestock, whereas farmers in the ‘semi-farming-pasturing area’, used early pasture transfers, or regulated the timing of the farming season. In addition, famers in the ‘farming area’ also used early pasture transfers, regulated their farming session, or increased irrigation.(2) The overall effect of the adaptation strategies is moderately positive, with an average effect index of 3.43. From this index, the social efficiency index is the highest (3.63), and the economic efficiency is the lowest (3.25). The effect of adaptation strategies was highest in the ‘farming area’ (3.56), less strong in the ‘semi-farming-pasturing area’ (3.37), and worst in the ‘pure pasturing area’ (3.33). (3) The optimal adaptation strategy differed per area, and adjusting the agricultural and animal husbandry structure was the most optimal strategy in the ‘pure pasturing area’ and ‘semi-planting-pasturing area’. For the households of the ‘farming area’, improving agriculture and animal husbandry facilities was the optimal strategy. Finally, we propose some relevant advice to improve the effects of farmers' adaptation strategies and discuss several issues require further attention in the future.