Play in farming: seriously?

This paper explores the potential of using playful and gameful approaches for facilitating and strengthening the collective action, networking, and negotiation of individuals, groups, and entities related to the farming sector across Europe, which include farmers and land managers. Framed under the EU Funded BOND project (bondproject.eu), we developed, experimented, and reflected on three playful tools for enabling the ‘bonding’ of various stakeholders in the sector towards creating strong, dynamic and effective organisations that have a voice and a place in policy design. The paper describes playful tools implemented in the project, which are based on the approaches designed under the award-winning GameChangers initiative (gamify.org.uk) and LEGO® Serious Play®. These tools have been repurposed through engagement with stakeholders from 17 partner institutions across 12 countries in Europe. Findings and reflections from practice-based exploratory investigations are discussed.