Futures Simulation: Nutrition Nexus

Shape tomorrow’s agrifood system

February 3, 2026

Shape tomorrow’s agrifood system

Nutrition Nexus

A futures simulation game that helps multi-sector stakeholders experience trade-offs, negotiate and explore collaboration pathways.

Overview

Nutrition Nexus is a facilitated futures simulation game designed to help diverse stakeholders explore how today’s decisions could shape tomorrow’s agrifood system.

Set in a near-future context, the game places participants in the roles of key actors across the nutrition and food ecosystem and confronts them with unfolding crises, opportunities, and constraints. Through timed negotiations, resource trade-offs, and coalition-building, players experience firsthand how well-intentioned actions can interact, collide, or compound within a complex system.

Rather than aiming for a single “correct” outcome, Nutrition Nexus creates a shared space for experimentation and reflection: surfacing tensions between short-term interests and long-term system stability, and making visible the often-hidden dynamics that shape outcomes at scale. The game was developed by United Nations Development Programme in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as part of broader efforts to strengthen anticipatory, systems-based decision-making.

Watch the trailer

Why futures—and why a game?

Agrifood system challenges sit at the intersection of climate change, economic pressures, technological innovation, governance choices, and shifting social norms: factors that evolve unevenly and interact in unpredictable ways.

Futures approaches are valuable not because they predict what will happen, but because they help decision-makers explore what could happen under different assumptions, incentives, and constraints. By engaging with plausible future conditions rather than extrapolating from the present, participants are able to test strategies, partnerships, and policy choices before they harden into path dependencies.

Games are uniquely conducive to systems thinking. […] Game processes that capture the essence of real-world systems allow for safe and rich explorations of how those systems could be changed.

-Pablo Suarez, Rethinking The Future Of Governance Through Games, 2017

In Nutrition Nexus, futures thinking is embedded through experiential learning: uncertainty is not abstract but felt, trade-offs are not theoretical but negotiated, and systemic risks become tangible through play.

If you’re interested in playing the game, or understanding how it could help your team, download the Nutrition Nexus presentation deck provides a comprehensive overview of the game’s intent, design, and use cases. It explains the rationale for using a futures simulation to explore agrifood systems, outlines the core design principles and mechanics of the game, and highlights who the game is for and how it can be applied in policy, learning, and multi-stakeholder settings.

The deck is useful for facilitators, partners, and institutions seeking to understand the thinking behind the game, position it within broader futures and systems-thinking work, or introduce Nutrition Nexus to new audiences ahead of a session or collaboration.

Download the Nutrition Nexus presentation

How the game works

Event phase: Each round begins with a player drawing an Event Card, revealing a crisis or opportunity that impacts the agrifood system. Players have 5 minutes to negotiate and pool resources to resolve the event and prevent negative effects.
Action phase: Players collaborate by offering resources to resolve the drawn event. If consensus isn’t reached within 5 minutes, a Wild Card is introduced, adding complexity and forcing players to adapt their strategies for the remaining 5 minutes of negotiation time.
Resolution phase: After all players have acted, the group’s collective progress is evaluated. The Crisis Meter is updated based on the success or failure of resolving the event, determining the overall stability of the system.

Core components

Nutrition Nexus is built from a set of interlocking components that structure decision-making, create productive tension, and make system dynamics visible. Together, they shape how players negotiate, collaborate, and experience the consequences of their choices over time.

Nutrition Nexus Facilitators Guide

A comprehensive guide to preparing, facilitating, and debriefing the Nutrition Nexus futures simulation, including game mechanics, timing, and facilitation tips.
Each facilitator should have one copy to refer to.

The guide is formatted for practical use and should be printed double-sided on A5 paper.

Five vintage parchment certificates fanned out, each with seals and formal headings.

Player Cards

Player cards define each role within the Nutrition Nexus simulation, outlining the actor’s position in the agrifood system, starting resources, and decision-making constraints.

Each player card is accompanied by a corresponding Objective card (see next image) which includes a public objective visible to all players, as well as a hidden objective that introduces strategic tension. Together, the cards create differentiated perspectives that drive negotiation, collaboration, and trade-offs throughout the game.

These are designed to be printed on a double sided 74mmX105mm cards.

Two angled business cards: beige one reads Public Objective and black one with orange text.

Objective Cards

Objective cards define each player’s public mandate and hidden ambition, creating the strategic tension that drives negotiation and decision-making in the game. Paired with the player cards, they balance collective system stability with individual success conditions.

Cards should be printed double-sided on 74 × 105 mm stock for gameplay.

Event Cards

Event cards introduce real-world–inspired crises and opportunities that disrupt the agrifood system and force players to respond under time pressure. Each card outlines the scenario, required resources, and system-level consequences depending on whether the group resolves it or not.

Event cards are designed to be printed double-sided on 148 × 210 mm paper and folded down the middle for use during gameplay.

Wild Cards

Wild cards introduce unexpected disruptions that escalate pressure when negotiations stall, altering costs, consequences, or system stability in ways players cannot fully anticipate. Held by the facilitator and revealed only at critical moments, they are designed to mirror real-world shocks that complicate even well-intentioned plans.

Wild cards should be printed double-sided on 74 × 105 mm cards and kept with the facilitator until introduced into play.

Colorful, fanned stack of small rectangular cards with money icons.

Resource Tokens

Resource Tokens represent the core levers through which players negotiate, collaborate, and respond to crises in Nutrition Nexus. They translate abstract capacities—such as trust, innovation, capital, and food availability—into tangible constraints and trade-offs that shape collective outcomes. Resource tokens are central to gameplay, forcing players to balance short-term resolutions with long-term system stability.

Printing specifications & quantities
• Token size: 40 × 60 mm
• Printing: Double-sided
• Recommended quantity: ~40 tokens of each resource type (Money, Nutrient, Research, Public Support) for a standard game

An A4 page (210 × 297 mm) can fit 12 tokens per page (3 across × 4 down) at 40 × 60 mm, allowing minimal margins for cutting. To produce ~40 tokens of one resource, plan for 4 A4 pages per resource (double-sided, aligned front/back). For all four resource types, this results in approximately 16 A4 pages total, depending on layout and bleed settings.

These tokens are designed to be cut after printing and used as shared, circulating resources during play, managed by players and monitored by the facilitator.

The Bridging Hub

Bridging Hub cards provide players with a shared reference for exchanging resources during the game, making cross-sector collaboration explicit, structured, and transparent. Rather than allowing unrestricted bargaining, the Hub introduces institutional rules that mirror real-world intermediaries such as multilateral bodies, regulatory frameworks, or market platforms that shape how resources flow across the agrifood system. The facilitator may step into the role of the Bridging Institutions to oversee exchanges.

Every player should have their own copy of the Bridging Hub card, which must be printed double-sided on 148 × 105 mm paper for use throughout gameplay.

Crisis Meter

The Crisis Meter tracks the overall stability of the agrifood system throughout the game, making collective progress—or failure—visible to all players. As events are resolved or mishandled, the meter moves between stability and collapse, shaping incentives, penalties, and end-game conditions.

Each game requires one Crisis Meter, printed single-sided on a 148 × 105 mm card and placed centrally for shared reference during play.