Playing games might seem a strange, perhaps even trivial, activity for a high-level international dialogue. But on 17 July 2025, experts from across the agricultural sector gathered virtually to do just that. By ‘gamifying agroecology’, they found fresh insights and new pathways for enabling a participatory agroecological transition.
The innovative session, organized by the German Development Cooperation GIZ and the Transformative Partnership Platform for Agroecology (AE-TPP), brought together over 180 participants to experience how policy negotiations might unfold in a fictional—yet plausible—national context.
Their task? To help shape the future of agroecology in the fictional country of Zamonia. “It’s a collaborative experiment,” said Jasmin Hundorf, head of the sector project Resilient Rural Areas at GIZ, which developed the game-based tools and training modules to build knowledge and mainstream agroeacological thinking.
Why pursue such a transition?
“Agroecology is gaining immense recognition as the holistic approach to address pressing global challenges like climate change, food insecurity, biodiversity loss and social inequalities,” said Monica Yator, founder of the Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative (IWGI), which promotes agroecological practices in Baringo County, Kenya. Yator also developed and presented an agroecology training manual during the session.
Map of Zamonia – the fictional country used in the agroecological transition game to simulate stakeholder negotiations around food systems, policy and land-use planning.
Isabel Renner, a GIZ consultant who co-designed the game with the AE-TPP, explained how the game fits within a broader set of training materials, which GIZ has successfully applied in capacity development workshops in partner countries such as India and Tunisia. “They’re based on adult learning methods and offer an interactive and playful approach,” Renner told attendees. “They combine conceptual input with accessible tools and highly practical exercises.”
To discuss priority actions for the agricultural policies, participants were divided into five ‘Zamonian’ stakeholder groups, which included: the Bureau of the Governor of Exportul, the Zamonia Smallholder Farmers Alliance (ZSFA), the Women and Youth Health Advocacy Committee (WYHAC), the Zamonian Institute for Climate Resilient Agriculture (ZICRA) and a large-scale agro-input company called Fertilizers and Seeds for Humanity (F&S4H).
“The main objective of today’s simulation is to revize a set of priority actions drafted by Zamonia’s National Agroecological Transition Task Force,” explained Fabio Ricci, AE-TPP communications officer. “Those that best reflect collective needs and gain majority support from the stakeholders will be incorporated into the final version of Zamonia’s National Agroecology Strategy.”
“Remember: Zamonia is fictional, but its challenges are not!” added Renner.
After reviewing the rules, stakeholder groups moved into separate breakout sessions to strategize and negotiate how to ensure their values and objectives were embedded into Zamonia’s National Agroecology Strategy. As the game progressed, creative tensions emerged.
The Women and Youth Health Advocacy Committee, for instance, supported phasing out of non-organic fertilizers and increasing taxes on their import and export, but also emphasized the need to include gender extension services.
“We understand that food systems must nourish—not just feed—our communities, both physically and culturally,” said one representative. “We advocate for ecological inputs that tangibly improve nutrition, reduce harmful exposure, restore dignity in how food is grown, shared and consumed. That must include policies that emphasize gender-responsive services supporting the well-being of all, especially women and marginalized groups.”
However, export-focused stakeholders raised concerns about new certification requirements potentially disrupting and jeopardizing established value chains. “Even if some of our exports rely on industrial fertilisers or lack certification, they need to be protected during the transition to avoid jeopardising international investment and trade,” argued a representative from the Exportul group. “If there’s a crash, capital will flee elsewhere.”
The private sector group, F&S4H, also called for caution. “Rather than phasing out industrial inputs, it is important to actively drive investments towards research and innovation and public-private partnerships, focused on soil fertility management and the development of agroecological pilot programs,” they said. “Also, we cannot transition our business model without guarantees of 100% for new production lines to de-risk the investment.”
ZICRA, Zamonia’s public agricultural research centre, sought a collaborative ‘middle path’ for transition implementation, including participatory research hubs that are co-led by scientists and farmers and yield results that are “community-led, documented and accessible.”
Meanwhile, ZSFA smallholder farmers warned that costly certification schemes could exclude smaller producers. They advocated for “affordable options that provide market outlets for agroecological products” and are easily adapted to different types of markets.
At the game’s close, participants and presenters reflected on some of the proposals’ broader applicability.
Photo by Vu The Son
Sandhya Kumar, a social systems scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and AE-TPP scientific coordinator, reflected on the need to ensure that private sector concerns are included in—but do not dominate—policy discussions and other multistakeholder platforms. “We need to think of a good strategy where they cannot overplay their hand,” she said.
Matthias Geck, CIFOR-ICRAF agroecological systems scientist and AE-TPP coordinator, praised the “collective brainpower and energy in the room” to quickly develop creative solutions. He echoed ZSFA’s demand for deeper inclusion: “Farmers shouldn’t just participate—they should decide what’s researched. That must be part of the governance structure.” Geck also acknowledged the lack of incentives for public research bodies to embrace co-creation, which often yields fewer publications and less prestige.
Yator shared practical ideas she took from the workshop to scale up agroecology in her community, such as promoting composting, developing ecological corridors and expanding timelines to support long-term agroecological functionality.
Ultimately, the exercise illuminated the intricacies of negotiating agroecological transition—while showing how gamification can foster collaborative learning, consensus-building and inclusive policy development.
Zamonia awaits: Step into the agroecology simulation – Watch the game:
Acknowledgements:
This collaborative work between the Agroecology TPP and GIZ was undertaken through the Food Systems Transformation through Agroecology Project funded by the Liechtenstein Development Service (LED).
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