Post-Farmaggeddon post

There were no oxen lumbering around amongst the tussock and toetoe of the Orokonui wildlife sanctuary, nor was there rice growing on the slopes but it felt as though there should have been. The 'players' at the Farmageddon symposium, held inside the conference centre at Orokonui were so absorbed in the game that was the focus of the weekend, that they'd probably not have thought twice if the sound of temple bells or shouted instructions in Mandarin, had drifted up from the surrounding hills.
The 20 'farmers' who had come from Invercargill, Dunedin, Wanaka and beyond to be part of the first Farmageddon 'experience' found themselves immediately immersed in eking out a living for whatever family the fortune cookie they were given to break open on arrival, assigned them.
They ploughed their paddies and planted rice, harvested fruit and fished on their river, all in miniature using the beautifully crafted 3-d terraced landscapes that formed the centrepiece of the game, marking their fields as they went with slivers of bamboo and collecting stores of coloured beans representing sacks of rice harvested, fish caught and fruit picked, all very bucolic and pleasant, for a while anyway.
There were difficulties to be faced though. 'Chance' cards that announced the arrival of floods or plagues of locusts sharpened the minds of the players, most of whom were actively involved in the outside world with organic gardening, orcharding, community garden initiatives or other 'green' projects that have food production at their centre. That real life experience had only limited use though as decisions had to made about the pesticides, fertilizers and cultivation machines that were soon offered by the game's 'trader'. Once the pressure came on sacrifices had to be made and at one point of the game, began to pressure the communities of players and they began to fragment as players realised the opportunity to amass wealth. Questions of ethics began to emerge as the results of decisions such as the mass-destruction of sparrows, the damming of rivers and the adoption of new 'improved' varieties of rice began to impact.
Those issues and the different solutions adopted by the players on the three boards, each representing either lowlands, hinterlands or highlands, became the subject of the debate that followed lunch on the second day. Discussion was intense but despite its challenging nature, well managed and very valuable. Implications of the lessons learned from the game surprised us all and generated enthusiastic discussion on what we might do in our 'outside-of-the-game' worlds, our gardens, families, communities and the wider environment.
Plans have been hatched, strategies devised, programmes set in motion.
There will be a second Farmageddon event and a third - as many as are called for. Already the second is almost fully booked and the radio programme recorded on day two during the discussions and including interviews with the players and the creator of the game Adam Guyton, which will play as part of National Radio's Spectrum series will ignite further interest.
The first Farmageddon was an experience like no other. As an observer (I cooked the 'Chinese' food for the participants; rice, fish, vegetables, I was hugely encouraged by what I saw over the two days - the depth of knowledge and experience amongst the mostly under-thirties who had signed on, their willingness to learn from each other and contribute to the learning, their stickability (the days were long but no-one lost concentration or enthusiasm).
If you're interested in looking at photos from the Orokonui weekend and think you might like to share in the next interactive experience, take a look at the Farmageddon website.