This post was written in collaboration with Chandni Singh, a PhD researcher at University of Reading. You can follow her @chandnisingh233.
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The Mombonga
household in Rural Africa consists of an adult man, two adult women, two young
girls aged 12 and 13 and a young boy aged 13. In terms of assets they have 50
units of currency and two parcels of land. A modest household with many mouths
to feed, the Mombongas await the beginning of the new plantation season. This
essentially is the beginning of another year for them. The Mombongas have a few
options at hand. They could invest the money in crops and horticulture to feed
their family or invest partly in commercial crops like cotton to earn some
extra cash. They could also invest some money in long term planning by sending
their children to school. However, with limited resources at hand, some tough
choices are to be made.
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participants of the summer school getting the hang of the 'game' (Photo: Nathan Oxley, STEPS Centre) |
The game
started at the beginning of the first cropping season.We made a quick decision
to plant cotton in one of my fields so we could sell it in the market and earn
some extra cash. This meant investing money in expensive cotton seeds. We planted maize in another field to feed our family. However, we soon realised that the produce
from only one field would not be enough to feed our family. Also, we needed to
provide them nutrition for which planting horticultural crops was
necessary. We decided to leave the
expensive cotton in our barn and planted maize and horticultural crops. So, a
part of our liquid assets (cash) had now got ‘locked’ in the stored cotton
seeds. Due to one seemingly 'smart' decision, we now had lesser options than what
we started with. The next decision we made was to invest in education. Education
is a big enabler and could potentially transform the future generations of the
Mombongas. However, the household had only enough cash to send one child (out of
three) to school. Obviously being development minded modern people we decided
to send a girl child to the school (probably an evidence of reverse gender bias
too). With 3 adults and 3 children in our household, we could also send one of the
adults to work in a neighbour’s field against a share of their produce. We were very happy with the decisions we made within our limited capabilities (except
purchasing cotton seeds). We had invested in assuring a sustainable food supply
for our family and extending its capabilities by sending a child to the school.
So, our 'superior knowledge' did actually work. However, we soon realised that
the household was now left with very little cash and if there was a pest
outbreak, we would not be able to invest in any pesticides.
That season rains
were below average and a pest outbreak meant our crop yield was down to 80%.
This was bad news. Combining our total yield and what we got in exchange of
labour, we had only enough to sustain the family. We also needed to save some
maize to use as seeds for the next year. However, no extra yield meant we
couldn't make any money by selling the crops in the market. At this point we
decided to sell the cotton in our barn to get some cash for investment in the
next year's crops. We were certainly at a loss because being poor farmers we didn't have enough leverage in the market to get a good price for the cotton. We ended up getting less money than what we had bought the cotton for. So, the family
survived somehow this year and had just enough money to buy seeds for next
year. By now our haze of 'superior knowledge' was fading away and we were getting uncomfortably
close to the reality.
By now the next
cropping season was upon us. We had only enough money to buy maize seeds to
plant in our fields. Horticultural crops being more expensive, we decided to
compromise on that. This also meant that we didn't have money to continue the
schooling of our child. This was a tough situation that we were in but there
was no alternative. Incidentally this year everyone in the village had enough
people to work in their fields so we couldn't get any spare jobs. This was
another year with inadequate rains. Our crop yield was again down to 80% and
now we didn't even have enough to feed the entire family throughout the year. A
dreadful situation was upon us. Destiny had decided that one or more of us
would not make it through the year. We ended up losing two children. However, we decided to save the educated child. Our argument was that since we have invested
in her education we must give her another chance. If some day we have enough
money we could be able to restart her education. Now the household was left
with even less money and we could plant only one of the fields. This meant even
lesser food for the family. Another horrendous year ended with the household
losing an adult this time due to lack of food. Also, the only child we had (the
one who was educated for a year) was now sick and we weren't sure if she would
make it another year. Mercifully, at this point the game ended. However, this
is not how life ends. We shudder to think what could have happened in the
subsequent years. The whole family wiped out? The whole village wiped out?

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This post is based on our experiences and ideas, generated while playing the African Farmar Game during our time at the STEPS Centre Summer School. The game is being developed by the STEPS Centre and would be released soon.
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