Farmizen: Architecting a Real world Farmwville (Parts A, B & C)

Abstract

This case illustrates how a digital social innovation inspired from the ‘Farmville’ game enacted a transformation in consumers’ consumption practices and thereby brought about a positive change in the farmer’s lives and on the environment. Farmizen, a triple-bottom-line firm that gamified the mundane process of buying horticultural crops for the consumers through its app, enabled consumers to vicariously farm their vegetables and thereby enhanced the value appropriated by the farmers and had a positive impact on water usage, and soil quality. Farmizen’s app allowed the consumers to rent a plot of land, choose the crops they wished to grow on it, track the progress of their crops, monitor if all the fertilizers, pesticides, etc. used were indeed organic and hence have greater control over the crops the consumed. The case focusses on how the process of vicariously co-producing the crops helped the consumers understand how healthy crops really looked like, appreciate the plight of the farmers, and hence, undergo a transformation that helped the farmers get enhanced value for their services. Students would get to learn how the principles of co-creation could be used to sensitize the consumers on the issues of the farmers and the environment and hence how consumer transformation can bring about positive changes. Since poverty of farmers, discarding of visually un-appealing farm crops, degradation of soil quality, etc. are issues faced by many nations; this case has a global scope and relevance.