The Beast from the East last spring, and then the heat and drought of the summer damaged harvests. The media has talk of stockpiling food in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit.
Suddenly and for the first time in decades, people are thinking about food security and what happens when it goes wrong. (And if you’re wondering about the why the heck people in the know are worried, take a few minutes out to watch this video we’ve made: Strange New World.)
The good thing is that we’ve been thinking hard about how city decision-makers can respond to threats to our food system ever since our horizon scanning project last year.
And we’ve developed a (tad frightening) Game that helps socio-political decision-makers to do just that.
Imagine yourself a Player in The Game. You and your team are in charge of a city.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to save the city through the ‘ACTIONS’ you take in response to forces affecting its food supplies.
You’ll learn what resilience really means in the face of the ‘NEWS’ thrown at you.
Some have happened recently, others anticipated by the likes of IPCC scientists and others who have a handle on worryingly plausible futures.
Participation will help you:
- Understand how national and global events affect what people in your community get to eat
- Think about what it means in terms of the long-term health and prosperity of communities
- Give you an alternative ways to think about economic as well as emergency planning
- And give you a reason to justify that stack of old tins of beans at the back of your kitchen cupboard
Here’s what previous Players have said about it:
If your organisation would like to play The Game, or you’d like to know more about it, please do email us: info@birminghamfoodcouncil.org
note: Image of the Birmingham skyline by JimmyGuano and reproduced here under a creative commons licence.
