tucked into a hallway of the 2024 world food forum, hosted at the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao) in rome, italy, participants gathered to play agroadapt. 

agroadapt is an interactive board and virtual game where participants are split into three groups: policymakers, community leaders, and farmers. for three rounds, the groups play to win the most points by collaborating with other groups in dealing with the effects of climate change. beau damen, the developer of agroadapt, said the goal of the game is for participants to learn the importance of group collaboration in the face of climate change. 

“if you’re working in different directions, the overall outcome may be worse for the system,” damen said. 

damen said he developed the game last year and delivered the final product at the beginning of 2024. he said the world food forum is his first event sharing the game with the public rather than with internal groups.  

although the game is not yet available for purchase, damen said they are sharing the game at other events throughout the year.

“i think slowly we’ll get it out to our network,” damen said.

understanding real-world problems through gaming

in the game, participants get more points if they work collaboratively with groups rather than working by themselves. the points are added up using a computer algorithm.

to begin the game, participants are split into three groups and given a specific amount of coins. policymakers are given 50 coins, community leaders are given 30 and farmers are given 20. 

next, the groups vote on which fictional country in which they want to grow their crops, floralandia, rainlushia or sereniplains. damen said the countries are based on the environments of real countries based on gathered data. using this data, damen created a biophysical simulation, creating these countries using mathematical formulations. 

“we’ve made them fictitious for the purpose of the game, but the data underneath is actually from real countries,” damen said. 

once a country is chosen, groups choose what crops they grow. the goal is to pick a crop that secures maximum production through a climate disaster.  

policymakers give a recommendation of what crop to grow to the community leaders and the community leaders recommend to the farmers, but the farmers have the final decision on what crop is grown. if the farmers go along with recommendations from the other groups, they get coins because they collaborated. 

how to play

the first round begins in 1980 where players pick five strategies against climate change cards. the point of these cards is to protect crops against the impending natural disaster caused by climate change. each card has an environmental, economic and social score which can either be positive, neutral or negative. the cards are paid for with the group’s coins. 

players then receive points based on how well their strategies worked when a natural disaster such as a drought, flood, or wildfire occurs. they do not know what natural disaster they are preparing for but are given the likelihood of each one affecting their country. crops and strategies previously picked determine how many crops are lost. the players either win or lose coins depending on how well or poorly the teams’ strategies performed.

the same process repeats for the second and third rounds, which take place in 2010 and 2040, respectively. but the amount of time farmers, community leaders, and policymakers get to interact with each other increases each round. the team with the most points at the end of the game is the winner. 

each round of the game is led by a game master. for one round of agroadapt played at the world food forum, the game master was rutendo mukaratirwa, 28, who is a geospatial scientist in the land and water division of the fao. mukaratirwa said she was a member of the game development team, like damen. 

mukaratirwa has held the role of game master over 10 times and has seen players’ perspectives change on how to combat natural disasters through playing this game. mukaratirwa said towards the end of the game, players are more willing to spend their money on a solution. 

“they are more open and willing to collaborate and lose money,” mukaratirwa said. “but in the end, they win and can actually get more points.”

playing agroadapt at the world food forum

one participant of agroadapt was dante bertocci, 23. bertocci is the ceo of his own startup company and in the game, was on the policymaker team. he said during the first round, his team did not collaborate with other teams because they were focused on making use of their money but ran out of time to make a decision on how to spend their coins.

“policymakers have a tendency to take their sweet time,” bertocci said.

bertocci’s start-up involves gathering agricultural byproducts, grinding them up, sterilizing them and using them as substrate for mushroom cultivation. although he mainly works with farmers, bertocci said agroadapt allowed him to step into the shoes of a policymaker. 

during one game of agroadapt, the farmers won, which included team member adam gerrand, 63, who is a forester working for the fao. he said farmers are “at the bottom of the heap” because they do not get paid as much as other groups. 

gerrand said “thankfully” the farmers’ strategies worked, even though they prepared for a drought, but were hit with a wildfire. 

“we were kind of lucky, but we ended up doing well,” gerrand said.

although he did not work on the agroadapt development team, gerrand said he’s worked on other games and finds them engaging for people. he said the game has “really good” concepts as it makes policymakers, community leaders, and farmers interact with each other to receive better scores. 

“if you have fun, you learn better,” gerrand said.