Experiential Learning Using Games in Kenya
By Kristin Davis, Balentine Oingo, Wei Zhang, Dickson Kinuthia, Upeksha Hettiarachchi, Ivy Blackmore, and Andrew R. Bell
The CGIAR Research Initiative on Nature-Positive Solutions works to reimagine, cocreate, and implement eco-agrifood systems based on nature-positive solutions, which equitably support local food systems and livelihoods, while simultaneously ensuring that agriculture is a net positive contributor to nature. Part of our work involves strengthening the capacity of farmers to engage in nature-positive solutions.
Why use experiential learning?
In an earlier blogpost, we shared how farmers in Kenya are creating nature-positive farms by aggregating their land. But farming cooperatively requires lots of trust, coordination, and rules. How is joint income distributed? What if some members contribute less? What if a member contributes a larger piece of land to the farm?
To better understand these issues, we developed a dynamic group game called SharedCropping using the Netlogo framework. In this six-person game, players use electronic tablets that are linked to a host tablet through a local network. Players share access to arable land where they can farm, graze animals, and develop their own resources over several agricultural seasons.
SharedCropping is an example of an experimental game that can be used to support experiential learning, or learning by doing. We implemented the game to advance research on behavioral experiments in the socioecological systems space, building greater understanding of how groups overcome cooperation challenges to balance economic and environmental outcomes. We also wanted to assess the potential of games to facilitate farmers’ experiential learning about coordination and cooperation. As they play, participants observe and make decisions that can shift their mindsets, without the potential for risk that comes from real life.
The game was very beneficial. One of my group members had low points, so we decided as a group to give her some of our points to boost her score. The game taught me that unity is strength. The game also taught us to love one another and be honest.
Agoro East female participant
Farmers playing the game in Lyanaginga | Photo: Edmond Khisa
How does the game work?
The farmers were randomly assigned to three different groups: men only, women only, and mixed gender. In the game’s shared landscape, the players made both spatial decisions—such as what to do with shared land—and nonspatial ones—such as whether to buy farm equipment, share resources, and acquire loans. Their selections also affected environmental outcomes, such as choosing to adopt low- or high-intensity farming practices and to cut down or conserve trees. These decisions reflected the farmers’ time and resource constraints, values on agricultural yields, trust in the collective effort, and care for environmental goods.
Interview with participant | Photo: Edmond Khisa
Participants played the game in three rounds:
Much preparation went into playing the game as many farmers had not used tablets before. The facilitators explained the game and ensured players were comfortable using the tablets by playing multiple practice rounds. After the game, players shared experiences and reflected on how the game related to their real life through a debriefing session, a crucial component of experiential learning.
Training in Jimo East | Photo: Lillian Anyongo
Players earned Kenyan shillings based on their own score at the end of the round.
Players decided together how their points would translate to Kenyan shillings.
Players were randomly assigned to two groups. Group one earned Kenyan shillings based on the lowest-scoring player’s score, while group two earned Kenyan shillings based on the average of all scores at the end of the round.
Player’s screen | Photo: Lillian Anyongo
What did we learn?
Despite some initial challenges related to the tablets and understanding the game, the farmers enjoyed playing the game and shared positive feedback about the experience.
When we played for the second time, we were asked some questions on how we wanted to play and how we wanted to be paid. So, we said that we would be paid according to the mean score. This means when we start farming together, we will allocate different tasks to the members: production, transportation, marketing, and storage. So, we came to an understanding that we should do the farming together and sell everything together so that when it comes to sharing the profits, we share equally. We decided to play that game and the same is what we will do on the farm.
Lyanaginga male participant
Competition motivates people to work harder on their tasks. The points encouraged us to aim higher.
Agoro East male participant
The game underlined the importance of cooperation and how sharing points can benefit everyone in the group.
Some participants felt that when payments were tied to the number of points earned by individuals, competition in the group increased significantly and motivated people to work harder.
Others viewed the individual payments more negatively, feeling that as cooperation declined, selfishness and tension increased in the groups.
We were told that everybody would be paid for the points that they scored. That was the first game where I saw that our group had a lot of selfishness, where everybody was for himself. At the end of the game, there was a lot of tension and confusion as well.
Lyanaginga male participant
In the rules phase of the game, most often, the groups adopted rules to ensure fair and equal contribution from all members, such as mandating that harvests be split equally among group members and everyone participate in each farming activity, prohibiting players who hadn’t worked from harvesting, and allocating the harvest based on each member’s effort.
Compared to all-male groups, all-female and mixed-gender groups earned more from low-intensity agriculture. This may suggest that all-female and mixed-gender groups more successfully achieved the dual goals of agricultural production and environmental sustainability—a win-win scenario that likely resulted from better coordination among these players.
Before and after the game, we also conducted a discrete choice experiment to help understand whether playing the game would shift farmers’ mindsets on collective action in their communities. We presented several hypothetical scenarios and asked farmers to make choices related to individual versus community benefits. This experiment showed that preferences shifted after playing the game: in scenarios with poor cropping outcomes—that is, a “bad” earning year—farmers placed more value on contributions to group farming or the collective good. One participant said, “The worse losses I experience, the more I value effort invested in community agriculture.”
Initial results show that the SharedCropping game is a promising tool to support experiential learning about cooperation and coordination as farmers work collectively to implement practices that balance economic and environmental performance, as well as short- and long-term earnings. Games like SharedCropping can shift mindsets and allow farmers to negotiate and experiment with rules for improved collective sustainability outcomes. Collective action is crucial for achieving landscape-level outcomes, and when integrated into a package of interventions, games and other similar tools hold great potential to support programs such as the next iteration of the Initiative, the CGIAR Science Program on Multifunctional Landscapes.
Participants’ quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
Acknowledgments:
We would like to thank all funders who support this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund
Explore more about the following topics through the links provided below:
Nature Positive Solutions Initiative
lnitiatives in the CGIAR Research Portfolio
Experiential learning publication
CGSpace
© 2025 International Food Policy Research Institute. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC by 4.0).
Group playing the game | Photo: Carolyne Jendeka
Older farmer playing the game | Photo: Kristin Davis
Playing the game | Photo: Kristin Davis
Debrief session | Photo: Edmond Khisa