farmers). Government representation included the Minister and a Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and representatives of the Food Reserve Agency. The private sector was represented by _inter alia_ the Chief Executives of the Grain Trader’s Association, the Miller’s Association of Zambia and the Zambia National Farmers Union.

The experiment was conducted as one of the first events of the workshop, immediately after the official opening remarks and introductory comments. Care was taken that no substantial information about the nature of the experiment was passed to participants beforehand, and that the introductory comments only made vague statements about what was to follow. The instructions were then read aloud. The participants were given the additional information that the game was designed using Zambian maize market data and that it represented a shortage year, such as in the 2005/06 season, in which the maize supply of traders and government would be imported.<sup>22</sup> A few modifications had been applied to the game compared to the main experiment with student subjects. One important change was that each player in the game was represented by teams of three to four participants, while the student subjects played individually. Individual play is effective in data gathering, but is less suitable for training purposes. It was important for a successful workshop outcome that the game was entertaining to play, and individual play sessions with their long inactive phases can be quite tedious for participants. Further, the workshop was intended to stimulate a dialogue between the different sides of the market. The team discussions naturally inspired a lot of debate during and after the game.

During play, teams were seated in separate rooms, where they could discuss their decisions without influencing or being influenced by discussions of other teams. Each group had a facilitator to assist the group in answering questions and to remind them towards focusing on the facts of the game itself as opposed to the more complex reality that the real players may refer to when making decisions.

The experiment simulated two parallel maize markets. Each participant was randomly assigned to a team. As a consequence, the participants did not necessarily play the role that they play in reality. The Minister of Agriculture, for instance, played in a trader group. Group composition was often mixed with representation from both sides of the market. It turned out that this feature was very useful for the purpose of the workshop, since it enabled participants to experience the game from different perspectives, either by own experience or discussion with a team-mate from a different camp.

Due to intense discussions within the teams the workshop experiment proceeded slower than the student sessions. Nevertheless, the teams managed to play three rounds of the discretionary variant and two rounds of the pre-commitment treatment within 21⁄2 hours. In contrast to the students workshop participants played both treatments.

> 22 Note that in the 2005/06 season preceding the workshop rainfall conditions had been excellent and a bumper harvest was expected (though minor flooding had occurred in some areas).  In such circumstances, the policy issues in Zambia are quite different from those occurring when a bad harvest is expected, including e.g. concerns from trader’s regarding the government’s export policy.  Without this information, therefore, participants may have been confused.

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