Who is who: Team leader Dr. Hendrik Hänke

Dr. Hendrik Hänke, who are you and why did you choose to become a teamleader for SLE?

I have a background in ecology and agricultural economics, and I have extensive experiences doing consultancy work and research on issues pertaining to food security, livelihood improvement of smallholder farmers, value chains and living income, mainly in rural Africa. After many years abroad and working for different institutions, I am glad to finally have the opportunity to work with the SLE in Berlin.

What is your research about and what research results have surprised you so far?

We are investigating sustainability hotspots along the potato and fish value chains in Uganda. These two value chains function fairly differently: the potato value chain mainly serves the domestic market, and the Nile perch value chain is export-oriented. The Nile perch value chain is highly complex and involves many different stages and actors.

Surprising to me are the dynamics of the Nile perch value chain, which I believed to be almost exclusively export-oriented with little nutritional benefit for local communities. Nile perch is more expensive than other local fish species, and most export is managed by non-Ugandans. I also saw the movie Darwin´s nightmare by Hubert Sauper, which gave me a somewhat prejudiced view on Nile perch in Lake Victoria.

However, there is a Nile Perch maw market in China which gives incentives to fishermen to remove the maws from the fish. Ugandan factories often do not accept fish where maws are removed anymore, so there are new opportunities for by-product processing by local communities and likely, more Nile perch ends up on the local market that way and contributes to the regional food security. Such dynamics are exciting and might offer unexpected & positive side effects.

What do you like best about your current job?

I have an excellent and motivated team consisting of 5 German young professionals and 5 Ugandan researchers. We are complementing each other in perfect ways and the fieldwork and workshops were a lot of fun. I also enjoy the great diversity of my tasks: working with farmers, students, researchers, stakeholders and many different institutions. It is a great opportunity to establish long-term partnerships, extend networks and at the same time to work on real-world problems.