GHP-TNL Using Gaming to Understand Food Scarcity

Patricia Stapleton, Jalal Awan, Padmaja Vedula, Jonathan Lamb, Jonathan Welburn, Tim Gulden

Sustainability and equitability of the world’s food production systems is a growing and complex issue. Over the next several decades, expanding global population and demographic shifts will drive significantly increased demand for food production as well as more resource-intensive mixes of foods, while climate change and direct human activities threaten the viability of many growing regions. Food systems are also heavily interlinked with technological developments, commodity markets, financial systems, human conflict, trade arrangements, and sociocultural norms. This confluence of factors represents emerging systemic risks that carry deep uncertainty about their long-term behaviors and response to policy decisions that, ultimately, puts the world’s poorest citizens at highest risk.

To make sense of and communicate this inherently multi-stakeholder problem, we will examine how the implementation of emerging technologies could alleviate food insecurity. More specifically, we will first review how select technologies – blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), satellite imaging, and the Internet of Things (IoT) – are or could be respectively implemented in South Asia, with particular attention to India and Pakistan, to decrease uncertainty and mitigate risks for farmers to support agricultural production and distribution. Then, in order to effectively investigate the various factors and stakeholders involved in the decision-making process, we will design a paper prototype of a food system game where regional or national outcomes depend on actions of human stakeholder and/or AI players.

GHP-TNL Using Gaming to Understand Food Scarcity

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