Crossroads: A dusty board game

A metaphor for where we are today in our food system

There’s a game in our game selection that is dated and dusty. It’s popular with one of my children because the board has a rural landscape as the backdrop that lends itself to playing cars and tractors, driving along the road. About ten years ago at my former job, someone gave it to me when they cleaned out a cupboard. How long it had been in that cupboard is anyone’s guess. It felt like a relic, even then. The game was produced by MAF back in the day, circa 1995, so, thirty years ago.

Crossroads : you choose your future : the sustainable agriculture board game was created to get people to visualise a sustainable future for our agriculture sector. (For those who don’t know about board games, its akin to making an App today to get people to play through scenarios). In the board game there are cards that people pick up and answer questions on topics to do with the environment, the community, the market, and then there’s a quiz like section. You roll the dice and when you land on a particular colour you pick up said card and think/talk about it.

I can’t imagine any farmers or high school students, or anyone in fact, playing this game. I was a high school student that year in a very rural high school, we sure didn’t play it. If you ever did, please let me know how you got on.

Not even I play this game. I’m unsure why I kept it, perhaps it shows me a taste of the past, an indication — or even proof?! — that ministerial officials knew and thought about changing our food system way back when. Unlike a stale report that is now shredded somewhere, there is a board game to show for it.

Resources were put into it to get people thinking about things we are still trying to get people to think about. This made me wonder, how do we really make effective systemic change? I’ve written a piece about what we can learn from this board game and scenario. It’s a piece of history that teaches us strong lessons about our future. I also turn it around to you. I ask, ‘what is your board game?’ as I unpack this metaphor and look at how we can get systems change right.

This piece took me some time to write, it comes in at around 2600 words and it lays out why systems thinking is so crucial in our food system. Please consider subscribing to my content. My subscribers make me write better and motivate me to continue writing.