Dr. Mona S. Chaya is currently Deputy Strategic Programme leader of the Strategic Program “Make Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry more productive and sustainable” at FAO. She was Senior Coordinator of Food Chain Crisis Coordination and Intelligence Unit at FAO from 2009 to 2018. She worked 13 years in the humanitarian field with FAO on agricultural rehabilitation and livelihoods resilience in countries affected by wars and natural disasters (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Afghanistan, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Philippines, Moldova and Myanmar). She worked in research at the ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria. Dr. Chaya holds an MSc in Agronomy and a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology.
Dr. Tao Xiang is Food Chain Crisis Policy Advisor at FAO and an associate professor at Northeastern University, China. His research mainly focuses on sustainable agriculture, with special interests in climate change and agriculture. His work at FAO focuses on impacts of climate change on pests. He has published several papers in journals such as Journal of Agricultural Economics and Review of Development Economics. He earned his PhD in economics from K. U. Leuven in Belgium.
The FAO predicts that the severity of the pest problem is only going to increase with Climate Change—calling for farmers’ to enhance their knowledge and skills to best manage pests and diseases of crops.
