Gaming for smallholder participation in the design of more sustainable agricultural landscapes E.N. Speelman a,⇑ , L.E. García-Barrios b , J.C.J. Groot a , P. Tittonell a a Farming Systems Ecology Group, Plant Sciences Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands b El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Carretera Panamericana y Periférico Sur S/N, Maria Auxiliadora, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico article info Article history: Available online 30 October 2013 Keywords: Communal decision-making Complex systems Communication Relatedness Leadership Social network abstract Smallholder farming systems often consist of a mosaic of interlinked forested and cleared-field patches that together provide a diversity of services to local and non-local stakeholders. Designing and adopting more sustainable farming systems for such mosaic landscapes involves communal decision-making and active participation of local smallholders. Currently, a wide variety of participatory approaches to involve individual farmers in such design processes is available. However, methodologies that address communal decision-making processes as seen in complex smallholder agricultural landscapes are still rare. Here, we present a gaming methodology developed to (i) actively involve farmers in the process of agroecosystem design, and (ii) to identify factors and patterns of communal decision-making through an in-depth anal- ysis of game strategies deployed by participants. At the basis of this methodology is the RESORTES board game; a stylized yet complex land-use game rich in ecological and social outcomes. Results of four pilot sessions in a usufruct community in the buffer zone of a Man and Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico, showed that the game sessions created an open and active discussion among participants. Discussions concerned land-use issues in the game and in real-life. It allowed participants that were new to active involvement in communal decision-making to openly discuss and share their ideas. The highly structured monitoring and analysis scheme for ex-ante/ex-post analysis was easy in use and identified communica- tion, leadership and relatedness among participants as influential factors that smoothened the collective decision-making process. The RESORTES board game and related games can shed light on farmer’s actual views on and responses to multifunctional agricultural landscape planning and the land sharing vs. land sparing dilemmas currently in debate in academic and policy-making settings. The findings of this paper can be useful to inform strategies for community involvement in agroecosystem design in a broader set of complex socio-environmental context, using serious game to guide agricultural landscape planning processes. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Smallholder farming systems often consist of a mosaic of inter- linked forested and cleared-field patches that together provide a multitude of services to local and non-local stakeholders (e.g. Speelman et al., 2006; Jackson et al., 2007). Over the last decades, many of these ecosystem services degraded due to unsustainable land-use change triggered by institutional, market and policy drivers (Wadley et al., 2006; García-Barrios et al., 2009; Ribeiro Palacios et al., 2013; Speelman et al., submitted for publication). Consequently, the design of more sustainable agricultural landscapes gained importance among a wide range of institutes and organizations (Wegner and Pascual, 2011; Astier et al., 2012). Increased societal awareness on the negative externalities of agriculture pushed governments and markets to develop mech- anisms that directly and/or indirectly reward farmers for develop- ing and/or adopting more sustainable agricultural systems that maintain ecosystem services within an agricultural landscape e.g. shade coffee certification, Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and carbon sequestration (Antle et al., 2003; Perfecto et al., 2005; García-Amado et al., 2011). Nowadays, farmers are influenced in their decision-making by often conflicting schemes. The associated economic incentives can deteriorate local social norms and institu- tions by inducing or increasing competition and individualism among community members (Gómez-Baggethun et al., 2010). However, the requirements and the environmental effects of many of these schemes extend beyond farm level and thereby challenge farmers to coordinate their activities. Coordination is particularly important in smallholder farming where a multitude of farmers manage a mosaic of plots (van Keulen, 2006; Herrero et al., 2010). Therefore, the study of the design of more sustainable 0308-521X/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2013.09.002 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 (0)317 481191; fax: +31 (0)317 481203. E-mail address: Erika.Speelman@wur.nl (E.N. Speelman). Agricultural Systems 126 (2014) 62–75 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Agricultural Systems journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agsy