Alfred John Sayaham, a farmer from Labasa was nominated for an FAO award for leadership

Alfred John Sayaham, a farmer from Labasa, Fiji, was nominated for an FAO award in recognition of his commitment to practicing Sustainable Land Management (SLM) technologies. He supports and shares knowledge of building resilience to climate change to other communities within the peripheral, and to ensure the adoption of SLM to all land users in Siberia, Labasa.

Sayaham received a “Model Farmer” award along with others from Mongolia, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam to mark FAO’s annual World Food Day (WFD) celebrations in the Asia-Pacific region. Alfred joined the World Food Day celebrations in Bangkok where he was presented an award by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand.

Sayaham believes that people have an obligation to care for the land that has taken care of them for generations. He keeps the soil healthy by using farming techniques like intercropping and planting on slopes. He is also part of the Siberia Land Care Committee – a group of farmers established with the support of the Fijian Ministry of Agriculture that dedicate their experience to surrounding communities to oversee proper land management practices to conserve land from degradation.

Climate change is likely to adversely affect food production and there is recognition that more effort is needed to tackle the adverse effects of climate change on food production. This is particularly true for small island developing states in the Pacific which are some of the most vulnerable countries when it comes to climate change. World Food Day is celebrated in over 150 countries across the world and is one of the most celebrated days of the UN calendar.

The theme for World Food Day 2016 is Climate is changing; food and agriculture must too. The UN FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and Pacific will celebrate World Food Day on 17 October 2016 (as Sunday 16th is a holiday). The theme resonates with the crucial time in which it will be observed, just before the next UN Climate Change Conference, COP 22, from 7-18 November 2016 in Marrakech, Morocco. Fiji was the first country to sign the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015.

Photo©FAO