African farmer game: Exciting way of learning agribusiness

The African farmer, a new innovative game that aims to make it very exciting for people interested in learning about farming principles to acquire some of the basic skills, is now available free online.

According to a statement released by the Future Agricultures Consortium, the free game, which is online at www.africanfarmer.org was created by a team from the University of Sussex and Future Agricultures, UK.

“The ‘African Farmer’ puts you in charge of a farming household in a village, as you make decisions and face challenges – from food prices, diets and work, to more unpredictable chance events like weather and disease. It builds on a long history of educational games, including the Green Revolution Game and Africulture,” says the release by Future Agricultures.

This open source online game thereby simulates the complex decisions and uncertainties faced by small-scale farmers living in sub-Saharan Africa. It is available in two versions – the single player and the multiplayer.

In the single player game, the player manages a farming household in rural sub-Saharan Africa and decides what to grow in the fields. The player will also choose family’s diet and look after their health, buy food, fertiliser and seeds from the market and watch out for chance events like bad weather, disease and price rises. As the seasons change, the player would see the results of his/her decisions and adapt a strategy.

According to the developers, the multi-player version of African Farmer is ideal for teaching or training at universities, schools or practitioner organisations working on agriculture in developing countries.

In order to set up the game, interested persons would need to download the game files packaged as a ZIP file at the online site plus additional server and MySQL software, which is explained in the Software Installation Guide.

One person alone can play the single player while the multiplayer game is played in a single session by between 12 and 36 people in teams of two or three players. A game manager co-ordinates the game and manages the market and bank. In the multiplayer game, each person (or team) manages one farming household in rural sub-Saharan Africa.

In addition to the activities carried out by the individual in the single player game, the persons in the multiplayer game would negotiate and trade goods, labour or money with other households. As the seasons change, they also can track the results of their decisions, and adapt their own strategies.

Players are randomly assigned to households of adult, child and infant characters. The size and composition of households varies, as does the number of fields each household is allocated for planting crops. Households are also given different amounts of starting cash to buy seeds and other goods at the market.

OLUYINKA ALAWODE