The EFICAS game: exploring eco-friendly intensification with farmers

The Eco-Friendly Intensification and Climate-resilient Agricultural Systems (EFICAS) project was an action-research project jointly implemented by CIRAD (Centre de cooperation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Developpement) and DALaM (Department of Agricultural Land Management under Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Lao PDR) and co-funded by The French Development Agency (AFD) and the European Union (EU) from 2014 to 2019. The EFICAS project aimed to engage farming communities into the participatory design of agro-ecological alternatives for sustainable agricultural intensification in the mountainous provinces of northern Laos. The EFICAS project designed a game to explore eco-friendly intensification of agriculture and sustainable development scenarios with farmers in the northern uplands of Lao PDR. Through this game, the players engage into participatory land use planning, explore alternative development pathways, and learn how to prioritize options for sustainable land management. This manual - from the EFICAS Know-How Series – aims to introduce this game to development practitioners and research institutions who engage farming communities into eco-friendly intensification of agriculture.