The year is 2022. Strong El Niño and La Niña events in successive years have drastically reduced wheat yields in India and Australia and increased the range of certain pests and plant pathogens in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, a drought across North America has reduced corn and soybean yields significantly. Global commodity prices are up 262 percent over long-term averages. These price increases are compounding other social and economic challenges, contributing to social unrest in several food-importing nations.

Although it’s a fictitious setting for a game, the preceding scenario may not be far-off from becoming a reality. Since 2005, the world has experienced two major food crises. Price spikes during 2007 and 2008 caused 36 nations to request emergency food aid, prompted export restrictions and panicked buying, and contributed to civil unrest in more than 40 developing countries. Food riots threatened regional stability across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Researchers have attributed past food crises to the rare confluence of several factors, such as the combined effect of droughts in major grain-producing regions, government policy decisions (e.g., biofuels policies), and economic conditions. Looking ahead, however, population growth and changing consumption patterns, particularly in developing nations, will require significant increases in agricultural production – despite a shrinking rural labor force, limited availability of new farmland, growing water stress, and increasing risks from climate change. These stresses will likely increase the risk of future global food crises if actions aren’t taken now.

Past crises and the threat of future ones underscore the need to better understand the global food system, including the stabilizing or destabilizing effects of individual country decisions and the growing impact of climate change. In November 2015, more than 60 thought leaders from around the globe gathered in Washington, DC, to participate in “Food Chain Reaction,” a two-day, policy decision-making game, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, Center for American Progress, Cargill, and Mars, and designed by CNA, exploring issues arising from, and possible responses to, disruptions in the global food system.

Rolling the Dice

The game organized players into eight teams representing Brazil, China, the European Union, India, the United States, continental Africa, the business and investor community, and multilateral institutions (e.g., the World Bank, United Nations, nongovernmental organizations). Other key regions, such as the Middle East and Central Asia, were incorporated into the game’s design and represented, as needed, by a separate eight-member team.

During four rounds of gameplay spanning 2020 to 2030, players faced volatile swings in food prices and supply, severe weather events, plant pathogens, supply chain disruptions, surges in outmigration, social unrest, and humanitarian crises.

For example, in one round, repeated flooding created a humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh. When the government is unable to provide basic services, protests spread across the country. With more than 10 million internally displaced people elsewhere already stressing global food-aid resources, how does the world deal with an imminent government collapse?

The game allowed players to face crises and simulate a response from their teams, a format that is well-suited to explore an issue as complex as food security, which is tied not only to agricultural production, but also diplomacy, security, the environment, economics, and development. The risk-free setting allowed players to debate the trade-offs of potential policies and test possible national, bilateral, and broadly cooperative approaches. At the same time, later rounds depended on earlier team decisions, promoting active ownership of the resulting consequences. By interacting with and learning from other players and teams, players expanded their knowledge of possible solutions and drivers toward desired outcomes. 

Everybody Wins or Everybody Loses

After taking part in the game, we found players had deepened their commitment to global and regional cooperation and collaboration – in large part due to the acknowledgement that no one nation, organization, or business can adequately address global food security.

Teams also developed policies to address climate change, recognizing its link to food security. Interestingly, they recognized the interdependencies among water, energy, and food security, but did not promote actions based on these connections to the same degree as climate change.

A broad consensus developed around the need for timely, relevant, and credible global information on food security drivers and indicators. Players viewed the availability of accurate data from all nations as a strong defense against global food system volatility.

As the decade unfolded, teams evolved from being reactive to balancing short- and long-term actions. Even as acute global food stress returned in the final round, teams were able to maintain their focus building resilience and capacity for the longer-term while responding to immediate challenges. In the final round, teams convened a Global Summit on Climate Security and Vulnerability, where they discussed possible coordinating mechanisms to ensure a more effective collective response to future climate change- and food insecurity-driven crises.

Although teams were not explicitly constrained by budgets in the game, they explored a range of innovative financing approaches to fund their longer-term agendas. Funding endowments were provided for basic research and development (e.g., seed development, pest management approaches), food production and processing improvements, and infrastructure development and enhancement.

Throughout the game, players were presented with significant internal and external migration events and social unrest. As a result, teams recognized the relationship between food security and regional stability. During the Global Summit on Climate Security and Vulnerability, players articulated linkages between extreme weather events, food insecurity, major refugee movements, and conflict.

Players did not, however, go so far as to recognize the food security-conflict feedback loop as described in the Wilson Center’s Harvesting Peace report. Players generally addressed conflict and instability exclusively as outcomes of agricultural production deficiencies while overlooking failures of governance as driving factors of food insecurity. One member of the game control team noted that teams devoted relatively little time to developing strategies that integrate the world’s security problems into the world’s food policies and what attention was paid focused more on strengthening preparedness for addressing conflict rather than modifying food investments and policies to prevent conflict.

“Food Chain Reaction” demonstrated that national, private sector, and organizational policies and actions can contribute to, or mitigate, global food system pressure and volatility. Following the exercise, players returned to their positions in government, business, and multilateral institutions armed with a glimpse of how they, and the entities they represent, can proactively promote food security amidst a wide range of stressors. Some players carried these lessons to discussions at COP-21 and initiated conversations about opportunities for scenario-based food security planning in their home nations and regions. The sponsors too have advanced the game experience through the development of a recommendations report and public dialogues, including expert panel discussions hosted at both the Center for American Progress and the National Press Club. For more, download the full post-game analysis from CNA, and the findings and recommendations report from our partners.