Während Arcadius Ahogle seine wissenschaftliche Arbeit zur Dynamik peri-urbaner Agrarsysteme und ihrer Auswirkungen auf die Eignung für den Gemüseanbau an der Nahtstelle der Counties Nairobi und Machakos in Kenia in nur 20 Min. vorstellen musste, entfiel deutlich mehr Zeit auf die Vorstellung der den Betreuern noch nicht bekannten drei Gutachten, die mündliche Prüfung des Doktoranden (jetzt wieder zugeschaltet) zu seiner Arbeit und das Zusammentragen der zweimal fünf Teilnoten. Erst zur Verkündigung des „Verdikt“ und der anschließenden Gratulation war der Kandidat wieder online. 4,5 Stunden on und off an solch einem wichtigen Tag und ganz alleine in einem Raum weit weg und bei nicht optimaler Internetverbindung – eine Herausforderung, die Arcadius Ahogle überzeugend gemeistert hat! Aber es ist doch toll, dass so etwas über Kontinente hinweg mittlerweile möglich ist.

Martinien Arcadius Ahogle Agassin, listing all his names here, joint Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences for six months in 2022, an opportunity within the DAAD’s In-region scholarships if the candidate finds a supervisor at a German university. Arcadius Ahogle convinced due to his wonderful dataset he had been working on at Kenyatta University and his willingness to go beyond a pure land use/cover change analysis of his study area. Involving Prof. Dr. Gertrud Schaab served the purpose of receiving supervision and advise on how to spatially combine and scale his findings based on the measurements of contamination in vegetables, the soil the vegetables grow on, and the water they are irrigated with.

The performed GIS-based modelling (following a statistical approach of involving experts) tied the various ends of Mr. Ahogle’s work: those followed as a soil scientist in the lab, the farmland typology based on a survey of farmers (adding empirical evidence) and the look into landscape change based on very-high resolution satellite imagery and by making use of planning maps. Today, these types of integrations of multidisciplinary data and approaches are required in order to provide in-depth recommendations for the important issue of food and nutrition security, here putting the production of healthy basic food into the focus. More particular, the production of healthy vegetables within the heavily expanding peri-urban settlements not only around metropolitan world-wide.

Arcadius Ahogle can be proud of what he has achieved and that he got additional international exposure. By publishing his still pending papers, he will ensure that the relevance of his scientific work will become widely visible and known.