Rifaath Hassan is a Research Associate at the Research Development Office. A researcher in the fields of agriculture and food security, her research focuses on nitrogen use management, food security, food policies, agriculture development and sustainable farming systems. She has been working in both the public and private sector contributing her expertise in the field of, food security for island nations, organic farming, agribusiness, sustainable farm management and climate change adaptation in agriculture. She is passionate about the transformation of food systems and local food movement.  

Currently she is conducting a study on traditional crops (taro) in the southern most islands of the Maldives in relation to sustaining island level food security, ethnobotany and land resource management. She has been involved in studies focusing on prospects of food self-sufficiency in the Maldives; food security in the context of local crops (taro and breadfruit); medicinal plants documentation and experimental trials using organic and inorganic fertilizers in different growth media. She is part of the MNU research team in an UKRI funded project by the University of Edinburgh which mainly focuses on, evaluation of current policies of nitrogen, progress and barriers across different scales; on-farm measurements and systems modeling to quantify inputs, outputs and losses of nitrogen, farmers’ attitudes to improved nitrogen management practices, and impacts on household resources.