Avid gamers and future farmers wowed the creators of Food For Mzansi’s Minecraft World in the game’s latest challenge that saw players build futuristic farms in a barren, outback desert setting.
Much like in the real world, the desert’s harsh environment and scarcity of water challenged players in the game. The harsh and extreme living environment presented the perfect conditions to challenge a group of players to come up with top-notch ideas on farming in the desert with limited resources.
Coordinator of the Minecraft challenge, Gareth Davies said the Minecraft challenge tested the player’s ability to apply climate-smart farming principles within the Minecraft world.
To make things a bit more interesting and possibly difficult, players were provided with only arable dirt blocks and a bucket.
“The desert environment in Minecraft receives no rainfall and only cactus and sugar cane can grow within the sand,” Davies said. “The builds that our players created ranged from smaller oasis type builds, greenhouses to large scale production builds.”
Relic steals the show
Judges had a hard time selecting a winner for this challenge. The judging panel included Food For Mzansi’s, Kobus Louwrens, Vateka Halile, Tiisetso Manoko, Raylentia Simmons, Ricardo Silva and Gareth Davies.
In the end, there could only be one champion. “Relic” was announced as the overall winner for this challenge, with “ZCMineGamer” coming in second.
Davies said: “Relic really wowed us with their extremely clever use of water in their large-scale builds. “Relic” built large cactus and sugar cane farms that used gravity as a way of hydrating the crops.”
The water would run from a single source down the farms that were built on an incline so that all the crops get watered, Davies explained.
A close second
“ZCMineGamer’s”, creative approach to desert agriculture and water-saving principles in their build, secured them second place.
“They constructed a greenhouse that uses glass that they created from the local desert sand, as well as a very clever drip irrigation system to water their crops.
“Their understanding of some of the fundamental Minecraft build techniques to make a drip irrigation technique is incredible,” Davies added.
According to Davies, their build may not have had the same kind of output as Relic’s, but they were able to make a small farm that would be enough to sustain a small family.
“The players have now started their final challenge where they are required to apply agro-processing principles within Minecraft to create as many processed goods as possible within a 2-week period,” said Davies.
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