Playing might seem a strange activity, even trivial, for a high -level international dialogue. However, on July 17, 2025, experts from the entire agricultural sector met virtually to do that. By “ludifying agroecology”, they discovered new perspectives and paths to promote a participatory agroecological transition.
The innovative session, organized by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the Transforming Association Platform on Agroecology (TPP-Agroecology)He brought together more than 180 participants to experience how policy negotiations could develop in a fictional, but plausible national context.
Your mission? Help to shape the future of agroecology in the fictional country of Zamonia. “It is a collaborative experiment,” said Jasmin Sinkorf, head of the Sectorial Project Rural Resilient Areas in GIZ, which developed the training tools and modules based on games to generate knowledge and generalize agroecological thinking.
Why promote such a transition?
“Agroecology is gaining enormous recognition such as the holistic approach to address urgent global challenges such as climate change, food insecurity, loss of biodiversity and social inequalities,” said Monica Yator, founder of Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative (Iwgi), which promotes agro -ecological practices in Baringo County, Kenya. Yator also developed and presented during the session a Training Manual in Agroecology.
Zamonia map: The fictional country used in the agroecological transition game to simulate negotiations between actors on food systems, policies and land use planning.
Isabel Renner, GIZ consultant who co-demonstrated the game together with the TPP-Agroecology, explained how this is part of a broader set of training materials that GIZ has successfully applied in capacities development workshops in partner countries such as India and Tunisia. “They are based on adult learning methods and offer an interactive and playful approach,” Renner told attendees. “They combine conceptual content with accessible tools and very practical exercises.”
To discuss the priority actions of agricultural policies, the participants were divided into five interest groups within the fictional country of Zamonia: the Office of the Governor of Exportul, the Alliance of Small Farmers of Zamonia (ZSFA), the Committee for the Defense of Health of Women and Youth (Wyhac), the Zamonian Institute of Agriculture Resilient to the Climate (Zicra) and a large company Agricultural called fertilizers and seeds for humanity (F&S4H).
“The main objective of today’s simulation is to review a set of priority actions prepared by the National Working Group for the agroecological transition in Zamonia,” said Fabio Ricci, head of communications of the TPP-Agroecology. “Those that best reflect collective needs and obtain the majority support of interested parties will be incorporated into the final version of the National Agroecology Strategy of Zamonia.”
After reviewing the rules, the groups moved to virtual work rooms to design strategies and negotiate how to ensure that their values and objectives will be embodied in the National Agroecology strategy. As the game progressed, creative tensions arose.
For example, the Health Defense Committee of Women and Youth supported the gradual elimination of non -organic fertilizers and the increase in imports to import and export, but also stressed the need to include extension services with gender approach.
“We understand that food systems must nourish – not just feed – to our communities, both physically and culturally,” a representative intervened. “We advocate ecological inputs that improve nutrition tangibly, reduce exposure to harmful products and return dignity to the way in which food is cultivated, shared and consume. This must include policies that prioritize services with a gender perspective that promote the well -being of all people, especially women and marginalized groups.”
However, export -centered actors expressed concern about the new certification requirements, which could interrupt and put consolidated value chains at risk. “Even if some of our exports depend on industrial fertilizers or lack certification, they must protect themselves during the transition to avoid jeopardizing international investment and trade,” argued a representative of the Exportul group. “If there is a collapse, the capital will go to another place.”
The private sector group, F&S4H, also asked for caution. “Instead of eliminating industrial supplies, it is important to actively boost investment in research, innovation and public-private alliances, focused on land fertility management and the development of agroecological pilot programs,” they said. “In addition, we cannot change our business model without guarantees of 100 % for new production lines, which reduce the risk of investment.”
Zicra, the Public Agricultural Research Center of Zamonia, sought an “intermediate path” to implement the transition, including participatory research centers co -directed by scientists and farmers, and that generate results “led by the community, documented and accessible.”
For their part, the small farmers of the ZSFA warned that the expensive certification schemes could exclude smaller producers. They proposed “affordable options that offer marketing channels for agroecological products” and that can easily adapt to different types of markets.
At the close of the game, participants and speakers reflected on the broader applicability of some of the proposals.
Sandhya Kumar, scientist of social systems at the Center for International Forest Research and International Center for Agroforestal Research (Cifor-Alicraf) and scientific coordinator of the TPP-Agroecology, highlighted the need to ensure that the concerns of the private sector are included, but do not dominate, policy discussions and other multi-actor platforms. “We need to think about a good strategy so that they do not use their position in an excessive way,” he said.
Matthias GECK, scientist of agroecological systems in Cifor-Alicra and coordinator of the TPP-Agroecology, praised the “collective capacity and energy” to quickly generate creative solutions. He supported the demand for the ZSFA of a deeper inclusion: “Farmers should not only participate: they should decide what is investigated. That must be part of the governance structure.” GECK also recognized the lack of incentives for public research agencies to adopt cooking, which often produces less publications and less prestige.
Yator shared practical ideas that he extracted from the workshop to climb agroecology in his community, such as promoting composting, developing ecological corridors and expanding deadlines to guarantee long -term agroecological functionality.
In sum, the exercise highlighted the complexity of negotiating an agroecological transition, while showing how ludification can promote collaborative learning, the construction of consensus and the development of inclusive policies.
Thanks:
This collaborative work between the TPP-Agroecology and GIZ was carried out through the Food systems transformation project through agroecologyfinanced by the Liechtenstein (LED) development service.
We want you to share the content of the forests in the news (Forest News), which is published under the license Attribution-nocomercial-compart-compart 4.0 International (CC BY-C-SA 4.0) of Creative Commons. This means that you are free to redistribute our material for non -commercial purposes. To do this, we ask you to include the corresponding credit of the forests in the news and a link to the original content, which indicates whether changes in the material have been made, and that disseminates their contributions under the same Creative Commons license. If you want to republic, reprint or reuse our materials, you must notify the forests in the news, contacting [email protected]
