The 2024 Pacific SID forum was organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UNDP with the Government of Fiji to support Pacific countries’ food system transformation.
This year’s theme is ‘Transforming Agrifood Systems for our Blue Pacific Continent through Better Production, Better Nutrition, a Better Environment, and Better Life’.
The forum was held to encourage interregional knowledge exchange to incubate, promote, scale up and replicate ideas for the advancement of agriculture, food, environment and health related sustainable developments was discussed at the Pacific Small Islands Developing State solutions in Nadi, Fiji recently.
In attendance and on behalf of NARI was Research Officer Mauro Okrupa who was invited as one of the key speakers at this forum, which was predicted as one of the largest in the Pacific and graced by Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka along with ministers and high level dignitaries in the region.
Mr Okrupa presented on the use of mobile phone to provide seasonal farm advisory to help farmers make informed decisions to manage the effects of climate change.
The office of UNDP FAO in a statement expressed that digitalizing climate information system to manage risks imposed by climate change is not an option by a necessity. NARI’s collaboration with ACIAR using seasonal farm advisory was pointing in the right direction. Mr Okrupa accompanied DAL Secretary Dr Sergie Bang, Agriculture Minister John Boito, Bianca Suarez of the Australian National University Climate Change Institute and other colleagues in the region.