PlayLocal2locaL is a pervasive game that is played on a digital device, but that leads to actions and transactions in the real world. The aim of the game is to connect consumers and farmers, through simulating a digital form of community steered agriculture (CSA) based on gamification principles. Similar to the CSA model, a citizen can commit to a provider's offer for a season. The most common way for this is to buy a 'harvest part'. This can be either part of the harvest of several crops and / or animals or part of the harvest of one crop or animal. The consumer can track the status of their ‘harvest part’, when this is ready for consumption the consumer needs to pick up their harvest at a local farm. In this way the social connection between consumer and producers is established.
The benefits resulting from PlayLocal2locaL include:
- Economic stability for the producers, due to the pre-investment model by the participants/ consumers;
- Increased solidarity towards the farmers due to the commitment of the participants/ consumers;
- Both the way of production as the logistics happens ecologically responsible, due to the small scale farms and demand for ecological friendly produced crops;
- Due to the pick-up points being at local farms the social connection between producer and consumer develops, leading to transparent and trustworthy food supply chains;
- The implementation of a digital innovation/ application makes it possible to reach a larger/ new consumer segment, supporting the development of short food supply chains.
