Dr Dr Rama Kant Dubey

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

National University of SingaporeSingapore

Research focus

Enhancing the food and nutritional security for a rapidly growing human population is one of the important sustainability challenges of this 21st century and also the target of United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) by the year 2030. However, intensive agricultural practices have resulted in rampant pollution due to the indiscriminate use of agrochemicals, drastically reduced the soil quality and aboveground-belowground biodiversity mainly due to the loss of soil structure, organic carbon, essential micro and macronutrients, and enhanced trace gases emission. Therefore, sustainable management of agroecosystems is of paramount importance to ensure the food and nutritional security of an additional 3 billion population by 2050 and also to maximize the food production and soil biodiversity without negatively affecting the ecosystems services offered by the soil system. Against this backdrop, during my doctoral research, I have developed various climate-smart and resource conservation agro-biotechnological practices for improving the soil fertility, carbon stock, aboveground-belowground biodiversity, and enhancing the yield and nutritional quality of agricultural produces. Furthermore, I am highly interested to develop sustainable agricultural practices that could offer the complete package for improving soil, plant, human and environmental health and help in achieving the targets of the UN-SDGs.

SDG targets

2.1

Universal access to safe and nutritious food

2.3

Double the productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers

2.4

Sustainable food production and resilient agricultural practices

2.5

Maintain the genetic diversity in food production

12.2

Sustainable management and use of natural resources

12.4

Responsible management of chemicals and waste

12.8

Promote universal understanding of sustainable lifestyles

15.1

Conserve and restore terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems

15.3

End desertification and restore degraded land

15.5

Protect biodiversity and natural habitats

Projects

In my postdoctoral research at NUS, Singapore, I am interested to know how the knowledge of microbial ecology, above-below-ground plant-chemical-microbe axis, and microbe-microbe interactions can contribute to the early stage re-vegetation of degraded Southeast Asian Peat Ecosystems.

My doctoral research at IESD-BHU, India, was lies in the area of agroecosystems management (plant-soil-nutrient axis), soil biology and agro-environmental microbiology. There, I have investigated the impact of sustainable agro-biotechnological practices on soil quality, carbon stocks, rhizospheric microbes and enhancing the yield and nutritional quality of agricultural produce under diverse agroecosystems of Uttar Pradesh, India. My doctoral research work has been supported by the CSIR, India. In the same, I also worked at Helmholtz Zentrum, (HMGU) Munich, in a short term research project and identified the structure and functions of the crops-specific microbiomes under conventional and sustainably managed agricultural fields. My work at HMGU was funded by BMBF, Govt. of Germany.