Biovision

Matthew Herren and Sebastian Stier run CodeSustainable, the company which developed Game Change Rio. Biovision launched this game which is based on Facebook together with the Millenium Institute in order to mobilize young people for Rio+20. We recently met the two for an interview.

What’s your mission with CodeSustainable?

Our mission is to create entertaining serious social games based on real world models. We try to combine interesting topics with proven simulation models, which are also used by policy makers, to create entertaining games.

When did you start working on Game Change Rio?

We started working on Game Change Rio in the middle of January. With the goal to launch the game by the end April, we set some pretty high goals for ourselves! Building a game is more than fun and games (pun intended!). Game Change Rio is the culmination of not just Sebastian and Matt, but also a dedicated team of software engineers, graphic designers and modelers. All hands accounted for — it has has taken about 10 of us four months of work to bring this to you. We hope you enjoy it!

Can you describe the scientific background of the game?

Game Change Rio is built on top of the Green Economy Model, developed by the Millennium Institute and commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The model is built upon a number of sectors: energy, manufacturing, transport, buildings, waste, agriculture, fisheries, water and forests. Based on a theory called System Dynamics, all of these sectors are linked, and effects of policies are seen throughout all sectors. The model has over 5,000 indicators, and with the 125 policy cards developed for the game there are over 100 million possibilities to play the game.

How did you precede in terms of design and programming?

First step is a rough game design where you decide on core game play and game mechanics. After that the engineers can already start to implement the basic features in the background. Then user interface design can start and all the graphics are produced. Parallel to all of that happens the integration of the simulation model. Finally all the pieces come together and it is time to test, bugfix and balance the game.

What’s the power behind online games like Game Change Rio?

Combining proven simulation models with professional game design to create engaging games has the potential to educate players on a subliminal level while having fun. Additional we see Game Change Rio also as voice for all our players to policy makers. We believe that with the rise of new gaming platforms such as browsers, tablets and mobile phones there is a unique chance to easily reach many players around world.

Which online games do you play yourself?

Sebastian: Unfortunately I have hardly any time to play games at the moment, but I enjoy playing strategy games and build-up games as well as puzzle games.

Matthew: I have always been interested in simulation games like SimCity. When I was younger, I was a huge fan of SimAnt — but I don’t think it has been updated to be played online. Yet!

In 1996, the community of states at the World Food Summit set a target to reduce the number of the hungry (830 million at that time) by half by 2015 . However, instead of falling, this figure has risen by almost 100 million. And this despite the fact that the world farming community has been producing an average of 4,600 Kcal per person, or about twice as much as needed. Today, losses between harvest and consumption– calculated in calories – amount to about 50 per cent.

Poor families in developing countries spend 50 to 80 per cent of their income on food. Any price increases are life-threatening to them. This was dramatically illustrated during the global food crisis starting in 2005, when the prices of basic foodstuffs sky-rocketed. In 2008, wheat cost three times as much in the global market as it did at the turn of the century, and maize (corn) and rice were twice as expensive. As a result, the worldwide number of the hungry increased from 850 million in 2005 to more than a billion. Despite this fact, the current practice of flooding markets in developing countries with favourable import products is not the solution. These products are only ‘favourable’ because they rely on export subsidies from industrialized countries. This competition keeps food in the developing countries cheap. However, this comes at the expense of farmers, most of whom also live in poverty. If you do not get enough money for your products, you stay poor and lose your incentive to boost production to boot.

At the same time, agricultural resources are shrinking. Almost 40 per cent of the soil used by agriculture is already degraded. In many places, water supplies are running low, the species diversity, the very basis of plant breeding, is declining, and in some regions of the world, namely in the tropics and sub-tropics, the climate change will have a continued and severe impact on both the profitability of agricultural production and food securities in rural and urban Africa. Moreover, with a major share in global greenhouse-gas emissions, agriculture is one of the main causes contributing to climate change.

Therefore, it is not insufficient production, but rather the circumstances, including food prices, unsustainable production methods, poverty, and adverse incentives that cause most of the problem of world hunger. Quite obviously, a widespread change is needed in our agriculture and food system, which calls for a global transformation towards an agriculture based on ecological principles to strengthen smallhold and family-held farms.

One specific example of an application of an agricultural method meeting the challenge of improving livelihoods while safeguarding natural resources is the “push-pull” technology for maize cultivation, developed by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) in Kenya, also supported by the Biovision Foundation. This technology is widely accepted and adopted by smallholders because it addresses the major constraints under which their production labours. The key drivers of an adoption of this technology are the control of striga, stemborer, soil erosion, and an increase of soil fertility and fodder production. These combined benefits, along with the low cost of the technology, make it highly attractive to farmers. An impact assessment concluded that ‘push-pull’ significantly contributes towards reducing the vulnerability of farming families by ensuring higher yields. Of the assessed farmers, 75% indicated maize yield increased between threefold to fourfold and, even more importantly, allows for better yield stability. Besides, as push-pull does not depend on external inputs such as synthetic pesticides and fertilizer, it is an environmentally friendly technology likely to increase agro-biodiversity and contribute towards a provisioning of ecosystem services. With the push-pull concept, ICIPE has developed the most successful and widely used intercropping system in East Africa and beyond, with current adaptations underway for more arid climates focussing on millet and sorghum as the main crops.

A healthy environment, resiliency as to climate change, fertile soils, a sustainable use of scarce natural resources including water, and a rich biodiversity, are the foundation of a secure and long-term food supply. After all, farms do produce a number of key ecosystem services, from which society, the environment, and the economy benefit, not to mention agriculture itself – for example as to pollination and natural pest control. Farmers can and should be supported as needed to assure that these ecosystem-relevant services are maintained in the future, too, as our civilization depends on them. One way is to create a set of incentives for the farmers and remunerate their efforts to maintain services relevant to the ecosystem.

It is necessary to put people in a position – economically, that is – in which they can afford enough food of adequate quality. Investments in small-scale farming and downstream processing industries are an effective approach to this: they create more jobs, bring more added value to rural areas and contribute just as much to reducing poverty as investments in other sectors.

There are greater extremes of weather, says Amanda Perrett (50), who has been raising cattle, goats, sheep, and camels on the family farm at Rumuruti in Laikipia since her childhood. It gets hotter and colder than before. The rainy seasons are no longer regular, whereas before, you could say exactly when they would begin. This is very hard for crop farmers, but it is also difficult for cattle breeders. 300 kilometres to the East, Abdi Gorane, the 66-year-old chief of a Kenyan Somali clan, reached the same conclusion. All of his cows died during the 2007 – 2009 drought. Of his more than fifty strong camel herd, only seven survived. Global warming has changed the weather in Kenya. But Kenya’s population has contributed to this, too. People cut down a substantial number of trees for firewood and continue to do so. What else can they do; they do not really have a choice. Just 7 per cent of Kenya’s land area are still covered by forest, and the deforestation continues.

When considering the issue of sustainable development and a green economy, we need to recognize that, in some cases, agriculture is a source of environmental problems, but also a major part of the solution to address some of the most urgent issues our planet is facing today. One of them is the climate change. Besides, globally, climate change produces serious challenges. Intensive industrial farming is one of the main causes of today’s climate change. Agriculture accounts for between 30 to 50 per cent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions – even outnumbering the total greenhouse-gas emissions of global transport . Agriculture accounts for 50 to 60 per cent of the emissions of laughing gas (N2O) and methane (CH4), both of which are potent greenhouse gases: 1 kilogram of methane has the same impact as 21 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2), and laughing gas has 310 times the impact. Animal factory farms have the highest greenhouse-gas emissions in the agricultural sector. Moreover, the potential impact of climate change on agricultural production is huge.

To provide relief, we need to switch to ecological methods. Methods of sustainable and organic farming that both reduce the impact of climate change while increasing the resilience of the production system are already available. One example is the sequestration of carbon in fertile soils where the humus content is higher. Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere ends up in dead plant material in the soil, is mineralized there and released again as carbon dioxide, but some of it is also stored in the humus for a long period of time. If the humus content of the soil increases, more carbon will be stored in the soil than will escape. Studies show that soils on organic farms are richer in humus than soils on conventional farms. In addition, ploughless farming techniques can further increase carbon-dioxide capturing in soils, because ploughs promote the breakdown of humus.

The text for this blog post was written by Prof. Christian Borgemeister who is Director General of icipe.

icipe’s (African Insect Science for Food and Health, Kenya) philosophy has always centred around green and sustainable pest control strategies, with a particular emphasis on biological and integrated control. Several landmark success in biological control of invasive pests include Diamondback moth (DBM), thrips, leafminers, fruitflies and stemborers. In addition, the Centre’s entomopathology unit has successfully developed several bio-pesticides, and in partnership with the private sector some of them have been registered and are commercially available in several countries in Africa. With push-pull icipe has developed the most successful and widely used intercropping system in East Africa and beyond.


Conference Rio+20 and icipe

Key words are improved food and nutritional security, greater emphasis on sustainability of agriculture in Africa and beyond. Greater productivity is one aim, but avoidance of waste and losses, the latter both pre- and post-harvest, can significantly contribute to improved food security at basically little to no environmental costs if done appropriately. The interrelationships between agriculture and health will become more and more important, not only with regard to nutrition but also vis-à-vis vector-born diseases that can particularly thrive in irrigated agriculture. Appropriate technologies need to be developed, for instance through improved water-harvesting systems to reduce risks of disease transmissions. Lastly the current trend to focus Research and Development (R&D) primarily on mid- to large-scale agriculture in Africa leaves out the vast majority of Africa’s food producers, the million small-scale farmers. More suitable technologies for the latter like icipe’s push-pull are urgently needed.


Milestones of icipe

• 60,000 families are practicing push-pull in the Lake Victoria region of Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.
• More than 500 African scientists have been successfully trained at icipe during the last four decades at post-graduate level (MSc and PhD), and the majority of them are still working on R&D in Africa.
• Biological control of the notorious cerealstemborer Chilo partellus and the Diamondbackmoth (DBM), the latter the most important pest of cabbage and kale worldwide, have saved millions of tons of produce, and provided farmers with a viable, efficient and sustainable alternative to frequent applications of synthetic insecticides.
• The adult pheromone of adult desert locusts, that prevent swarm formation, has been registered as a protect agent for locust control in Sudan, and is becoming part of the FAO approved arsenal of locust control techniques.
• icipe’s landmark NGU tsetse trap has been successfully used to clear large swaths of tsetse-infested savannahs in East Africa. This technology is particularly efficient and powerful if owned by the communities, as recent examples from Ethiopia exemplify.
• icipe’s contribution to integrated malaria control, with a particular foci on community involvement and environmental control, is gaining significant traction in various ecological settings in Africa, from peri-urban environments to the highlands of East Africa.
• The annual scientific output of the Centre has risen to an average of 80 to 100 peer-reviewed publications a year, including a cover-story in Nature in 2011.
• In September 2011 the Centre opened the Martin Luescher Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Laboratory. This 1000 m2 EID facility is unique in Africa and will enable African scientists to work on such important diseases like Rift Valley Fever, Dengue, Chikungunya, Yellow Fever, West Nile Virus etc.
• Over the last couple of years icipe has grown tremendously, with this year’s anticipated budget reflecting a near tripling of the annual turn-over compared to 6 to 7 years ago. This is coupled with sufficient reserves that will enable the Centre to withstand potential economic shocks in the future.