Serious game: Forage rummy

Forage Rummy (Rami fourrager®) is a serious game intended to support users’ (farmers, agricultural consultants) reflection about adaptation of livestock systems to new contextual challenges (e.g. climate change, volatility of input prices) and new farmers’ objectives (e.g. transition to organic farming) within a framework of initial constraints (soil types, climate, available crop and grassland cultivars, etc.).

Forage Rummy is intended to be used by agricultural consultants and/or researchers with small groups of 2 to 4 farmers during workshops lasting from 2 to 4 hours. Farmers have to be concerned with a shared problem situation. Assisted by a facilitator (an agricultural consultant or a researcher), they address this problem situation by designing a livestock system using material items (forage sticks, animal and feed cards) and evaluating its relevance with respect to farmers’ objectives using a spreadsheet that automates the calculations of indicators and graph. The spreadsheet thereby hastens the process whereby players visualize if forage production adequately matches animal feeding requirements across seasons and eventually decide whether to continue with additional design and evaluation loops.

Forage Rummy is a material and social platform for virtual experimentation. By requiring farmers to elicit their empirical know-how, Forage Rummy also stimulates discussions and sharing of knowledge between them. So far, it has been applied in up to 50 workshops that have involved more than 200 farmers all across France.

Forage Rummy can easily be adapted to:

• Different problem situations: being self-sufficient for forage and/or proteins, adapting to new specifications, coping with climate change, etc.
• Different soil-plant-climate contexts
• Different types of animals (currently available for dairy and beef cattle, dairy and beef sheeps, dairy goats)

Publications about Forage Rummy

Scientific papers

• Martin G, Martin-Clouaire R, Duru M (2012) Farming system design to feed the changing world. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development.
• Martin G, Felten B, Duru M (2011) Forage rummy: A game to support the participatory design of adapted livestock systems. Environmental Modelling & Software 26:1442-1453.
• Duru M, Martin-Clouaire R (2011) Cognitive tools to support learning about farming system management: a case study in grazing systems. Crop and Pasture Science 62:790.
• Duru, M., Felten, B., Theau, J.P., Martin, G., 2012. Designing and evaluating supports for enhancing learning about adaptation of grassland-based livestock systems to climate change. Regional Environmental Change, Volume 12, Issue 4 : 739-750.
• Felten B., Martin G., Theau J.P., Duru M. (2010) "Characterization of climate change and its consequences on agronomic potentialities in pastoral region" Adapting to Climate Change : Agricutlture and Ecosystems (ACCAE) - Clermont-Ferrand (FRA): 20-22 octobre 2010.

Poster

• Martin G., Felten B., Theau J.P., Magne M.A., Thénard V., Duru M. (2010) "Which farming systems to adapt to climate change? (2) Livestock systems design and evaluation" Adapting to Climate Change : Agricutlture and Ecosystems (ACCAE) - Clermont-Ferrand (FRA): 20-22 octobre 2010

Contact

Guillaume MARTIN
INRAE Toulouse - UMR AGIR
Tél: +33 (0)5 61 28 54 52 - guillaume.martin[@]inrae.fr

Rami Fourrager is a registered trademark