Laos Forage Game
The Laos Forage game is designed to explore whether or not a new technology is adopted, barriers and challenges for adoption and implications on the farming system. The model mimics an archetypical village in Southern Laos.
Participants embody rice farmers with some livestock. The objective of the game is to see how farmers would integrate the cultivation of perennial forage species in their farming system and what obstacles they perceive for the adoption of those forages. In order to do so, we are aiming to understand the decision-making process of farmers regarding the adoption and application of this new practice. Furthermore, we are exploring the impacts of new forages on farmers’ herd management.
We have conducted game sessions with farmers in January and February 2018 in 5 villages in the Southern Districts of Laos. The game has been developed in collaboration with the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Universities of Murdoch and Adelaide (more on the project external pagehere). ForDev was responsible to develop and support the implementation of the game in the field.
Training on the gaming approach
As a follow-up activity, im May 2018 we organised together with the Australian colleages a capacity building workshop for Lao researchers at the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) in Laos on Gaming as a socio-ecological research methodology.
Contact
ETH Zürich