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This project is a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and The Lexicon. FAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Their goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 member states, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide.
The Lexicon is a US-based NGO that uses evidence-based storytelling, strategy, and mobilization to build movements tackling our food systems’ greatest challenges. They use evidence-based storytelling to help people pay closer attention to how they eat, what they buy, and where their responsibility begins for creating a healthier, safer food system.
By joining forces, FAO and The Lexicon were able to combine powerful storytelling tools and advanced quantitative modeling to convey the wealth of knowledge and data to demonstrate how certain choices can solve challenges faced by agri-food systems.
About FAO
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Our goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 member states, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide. We believe that everyone can play a part in ending hunger.
About Green Brown Blue
The Lexicon is a US-based NGO that uses evidence-based storytelling, strategy, and mobilization to build movements that help people pay closer attention to how they eat, what they buy, and where their responsibility begins for creating a healthier, safer food system.
Green Brown Blue is a food systems solutions activator produced by The Lexicon with support from Food at Google. Its activators assesses the current food landscape, engage with key influencers, identify trends, surveys innovative work, and creates greater visibility for ideas and practices with the potential to shift key food and agricultural paradigms.
Change the Game Team
Change the Game, Change the Future features an unprecedented collaboration between members of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and The Lexicon to create a platform that demonstrates the complexities of agri-food systems transformation. Meet the team behind it.
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Douglas is an award-winning information architect, filmmaker, photographer, and writer.
He directed the KNOW YOUR FOOD series for PBS and GROWING ORGANIC for USDA, MOLOTOV ALVA for HBO, and has authored two books, SLOW: Life in a Tuscan Town, and LOCAL: The New Face of Food & Farming in America.
He is also one of Crop Trust’s Food Forever champions and a visiting professor in the Master’s Program at Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy.
New bio: Douglas is an award-winning information architect, filmmaker, photographer, and writer.
He co-founded The Lexicon, directed the KNOW YOUR FOOD series for PBS and GROWING ORGANIC for USDA, MOLOTOV ALVA for HBO, and has authored two books, SLOW: Life in a Tuscan Town, and LOCAL: The New Face of Food & Farming in America.
He is also one of Crop Trust’s Food Forever champions and a visiting professor in the Master’s Program at Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy.
Dr. Máximo Torero Cullen is the Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). He joined the Organization in January 2019 as Assistant Director-General for the Economic and Social Development Department. Prior to joining FAO, he was the World Bank Group Executive Director for Argentina, Bolivia, Chile Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay since November 2016, and before the Bank Dr. Torero led the Division of the Markets, Trade, and Institutions at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). His major research work lies mostly in analyzing poverty, inequality, the importance of geography and assets (private or public) in explaining poverty, and in policies oriented towards poverty alleviation based on the role played by infrastructure, institutions, and on how technological breakthroughs (or discontinuities) can improve the welfare of households and small farmers. His experience encompasses Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.
Dr. Torero, a national of Peru, holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of the Pacific, Lima, Peru. He is a professor on leave at the University of the Pacific (Perú) and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Bonn, Germany, and has also published in top journals (QJE, Econometric Theory, AER-Applied Microeconomics, RSTAT, Labor Economics, and many other top journals).
Dr. Torero received the Georg Foster Research Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2000, won the Award for Outstanding Research on Development given by The Global Development Network, twice, in 2000 and in 2002, and received the Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole in 2014.
Dr. David Laborde Debucquet joined IFPRI, Washington DC, in 2007. He is a Senior Research Fellow in the Markets, Trade and Institutions Division and the Theme Leader on Macroeconomics and Trade for IFPRI.
His research interests include globalization, international trade, measurement and modeling of protectionism, multilateral and regional trade liberalization as well as environmental issues (climate change, biofuels). He has developed the MAcMapHS6 and the ADEPTA databases on tariffs as well as the TASTE software. He is a contributor to the GTAP database and a GTAP research fellow since 2005. Recently, he has been focusing on costing the roadmap to achieving SDG2 in a globalized context while considering the role of goods, capital, and migration flows.
Beyond his work on databases, he has developed several partial and general equilibrium models applied to trade policy and environmental issues, including the MIRAGE and MIRAGRODEP models and their extensions.
He has participated in and organized training sessions for researchers and policymakers in several developing countries, with a special focus on sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to joining IFPRI, he was an Economist at the Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales (CEPII), Paris between 2003 and 2007 and lecturer at the University of Pau (France). He received his PhD from the University of Pau in 2008. He has also worked as a consultant for the European Commission, the Economic Commission for West Africa, the World Bank, USAID, and various UN agencies.
Katrin Park is a communications and knowledge management professional with development experience in seven countries, including Afghanistan, Indonesia, and North Macedonia. She’s an expert in developing and executing communications strategies for the UN and NGOs to achieve policy objectives. She’s currently a knowledge management consultant at FAO.
Previously, she was head of communications for research institutes in Cairo and Washington. She’s also a freelance writer and her articles have appeared in outlets like Foreign Policy and USA Today.
She has a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University.
Chloe Cho is a writer and project manager at The Lexicon. She is a graduate from the University of California, Berkeley with a BS in Genetics & Plant Biology, a BA in Data Science, and a minor in Food Systems. During her time at Berkeley, she found a passion for agroecology and the intricacies of the ecological and social networks in agriculture and agri-food systems. Her research focuses on ecological pest management and the wealth of knowledge in traditional and indigenous farming systems as alternatives to pesticides. She is especially interested in the impacts of urbanization on insect communities and localized urban agri-food systems.
Additionally, Chloe is a contributing writer to UnScilenced, a collective of scientists who translate scientific literature into accessible articles for policymakers and the public. She believes that science communication should be inclusive, not exclusive and that people deserve to be informed. She is also a Science Fellow at Pesticide Action Network North America.
Pier Giorgio is The Lexicon’s Head of Digital. Based near Bristol, England, his projects include short films for PBS, USDA, Warner Brothers, and Napster, as well as a feature-length documentary for HBO. He also produces short films for Sustainable Food Trust and GrowEatGather, which showcases British farmers and their role in producing sustainable food.
Alberto is an associate director at The Lexicon, where he leads impact campaigns (Reawakened, A Greener Blue) and multi-stakeholder projects in collaboration with both private and public organizations. His work leverages evidence-based storytelling, collaborative approaches and story-based design.
In Italy, in a cozy house in a picturesque isometric town lives Aurielaki. Scenographer by training and illustrator by profession for 25 years. Freelance contributor to the main microstock platforms, which was one of the precursors and a reference point for the isometric style, which is known, appreciated, and used by increasingly numerous international audiences. In his virtual forge every day Aurielaki, tirelessly, gives life to new worlds.
Amine is a game programmer for over 13 years, working on a wide range of platforms including consoles and mobile. With a particular interest in the intersection between Art and Technology, Amine likes making content creation tools used by both creative and technical disciplines. He likes long-distance running and his best times are 16m39s over 5K and 1h22m35s over 21K.
Pedro Guerra is the designer of Pete War Studio. He design and develop new media content, multidisciplinary approach to digital content. He thinks in design with a smart interaction and visual feel, innovative interface, whether it is for web or mobile.
Working for 14 years in the creative industries, worked for several companies such as Mega.nz and Triworks.
Transforming our agri-food systems so that they can feed 8.5 billion people sustainably by 2030 is a critical milestone to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Most countries often have clear objectives–such as ending hunger or making healthy diets available for everyone–but the complexities of these decisions are difficult to consider, and ministries often act in silos. This can lead to unintended consequences, including negative impacts on land, water, biodiversity, and equity. We believe that a game using data and storytelling tools can help players understand the complexities and consequences of their choices, and make them move to action.
Transforming our agri-food systems so that they can feed 8.5 billion people sustainably by 2030 is a critical milestone to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Most countries often have clear objectives–such as ending hunger or making healthy diets available for everyone–but the complexities of these decisions are difficult to consider, and ministries often act in silos. This can lead to unintended consequences, including negative impacts on land, water, biodiversity, and equity. We believe that a game using data and storytelling tools can help players understand the complexities and consequences of their choices, and make them move to action.
Food loss and food waste are major contributors to global warming and agri-food systems inefficiencies. Tackling them can deliver a triple win by feeding more people with healthier diets, generating income for agri-food systems workers, and conserving and protecting natural resources. So we began with food loss and waste to show how agri-food systems can be made more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable. Future versions of the game will address different challenges that agri-food systems face.
Most of the data are from the United Nations, with a lot of agri-food systems data coming from the Food and Agriculture Organization. There is also household survey data to capture certain elements, like poverty and hunger, at the country level, as well as some World Development Indicators from the World Bank. We wanted to bring all these rich data together into a single model.
We grouped the nearly 200 countries into 17 regions to facilitate gameplay and provide different experiences. In the game, the player is in charge of a fictional representative country of each of these regions. Every region has its own unique set of strengths and challenges that will determine which decisions will have the greatest impacts and which will lead to unintended consequences. For example, a region may struggle with food insecurity and poverty but could have rich biodiversity and potential for agricultural production. Balancing these opportunities and challenges is a key part of the game.
It developed over decades, as countries realized economic growth alone wasn’t sufficient and that development had to be inclusive to address inequality and protect the planet for future generations. Eventually, this led to the notion of “sustainable development,” in which economic, social, and environmental priorities are balanced.
The policy choices are focused on agri-food systems throughout the production, distribution, processing, and consumption phases. To make the most informed decisions, players can seek advice from government ministers and experts, but they quickly learn that making decisions for the benefit of one region may lead to adverse effects halfway across the globe. What players need is a well-balanced policy intervention, not a hypothetical miracle solution. Read more here.
During the game, your choices impacted a number of economic, social, and environmental variables, like the number of people suffering from chronic hunger or the amount of land deforested or saved from deforestation. These variables are aggregated into six main indicators (GDP, jobs, food security, poverty, emissions, and biodiversity) and gathered into the three dimensions of sustainability.
The scoring procedure follows two steps. First, we measure your performance on each of these indicators on a -10 to +10 scale, relative to each region. For example, a +10 on food security means that you’ve achieved the maximum performance that the region can within the game. It doesn’t mean that you’ve solved all food security problems, but that you’ve made the best possible choices based on the options given to you. This game is about actions related to tackling food loss and waste, but obviously just dealing with food loss and waste will not solve all the problems.
The next step is about aggregating these performances. First, a simple average is taken across the two indicators belonging to each dimension of sustainability. Finally, each of these dimensions is weighted by the percentages indicated by your preferences to get a final score.
There are many concepts that the game addresses and multiple outcomes screens help break these down, with each screen zooming out to a larger scale. The player is first shown how they performed on the challenge of reducing food loss and waste within their region. Next, the player is shown how their choices for addressing food loss and waste impacted the overall sustainability of their region. Finally, the world sustainability screen shows how the player’s choices have impacted sustainability globally. This score is based on the potential of what their region could do for the world, so even a small region can have a high score if they have done everything in their power for global sustainability.
Playing the game multiple times within the same region can demonstrate how different decisions can lead to different outcomes for food loss and waste, as well as sustainability. The tradeoffs in scores reflect tradeoffs in real-life policymaking, which is an important concept for problem-solving and critical thinking. Playing the game in different regions illustrates how even the exact same choices can lead to different outcomes, depending on the conditions and resources specific to each region.
This project is a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and The Lexicon. FAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Their goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 member states, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide.
By joining forces, FAO and The Lexicon were able to combine powerful storytelling tools and advanced quantitative modeling to convey the wealth of knowledge and data to demonstrate how certain choices can solve challenges faced by agri-food systems.
Although fisheries and aquaculture are vital to the nutrition and livelihoods of many people and the biodiversity of life below water, this game focuses on farming and ranching. Food loss and waste issues related to fisheries involve a particular set of challenges that go far beyond what could fit into this game’s narrative.
