Dr. Evans Appiah Kissi

Evans has been a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the field of "Sustainability Management in the International Food Industry" at the Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences at the University of Kassel since June 2021. In April 2021, he was awarded the doctoral degree (Dr. agra.) at the University of Kassel for his dissertation entitled "Governance for Decent Work in Agricultural Globalization".

He holds a Master's degree in Sustainable International Agriculture (with a focus on International Agribusiness and Rural Development Economics) from the University of Göttingen and the University of Kassel. Prior to this, he completed a Bachelor's degree in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana.

Evans is strongly committed to knowledge transfer and sharing his research expertise in the Global South. From 2021 to 2023, he worked as part of the Diaspora Expert Program of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and trained smallholder farmers in Ghana on sustainability issues. Since 2024, he has also been participating in the ERASMUS+ teaching mobility program at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana.

• Teaching at Master's level, including the organization of courses and seminars
• Supervision of Master's theses and research projects
• Academic and professional supervision (mentoring) of Master's students
• Conducting independent and cooperative research

My current research interests focus on understanding sustainable food systems in the Global South, in particular on answering the following questions:

• How can sustainability in food systems be measured and evaluated, especially in their social and economic dimensions (with a particular focus on cocoa value chains)?
• What strategies are available to make food systems more sustainable?
• Which governance and management practices contribute to strengthening sustainable food systems?

Google Scholar Citations

Kissi, E. A.(2025). Can Private Companies in the EU Reduce Child Labor in West Africa Cocoa through Mandatory Regulations? Tropentag, 2025: Reconciling land system changes with planetary health, September 10 - 12, 2025 organized by University of Bonn / ZEF, Bonn, Germany.

Kissi, E. A, & Herzig, C. (2021). Governance of Decent Work in Ghana's Cocoa Industry: Implications for Economic and Social Upgrading. German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA) > 61st Annual Conference, Berlin, Germany, September 2021.

Kissi, E. A., & Herzig, C. (2019). Methodologies for Understanding Labor Relations in Global Agricultural Production Networks: A Review. XIV Global Labor University Conference, Berlin, Germany, March 2019.

Kissi, E.A. (2019). Governing decent work in Ghanaian cocoa production: the effectiveness of certification standards for economic and social upgrading. International Working Seminar on Responsibility and Accountability of Supply Chains, Kassel, Germany, March 2019.

Kissi, A.E. (2018). Private Sustainability Initiatives in the Cocoa Sector of Ghana - Do they Promote Economic and Social Upgrading? U4 SSEL Conference "Current Challenges for a Sustainable Future", Göttingen, Germany, November 2018.

Kühn, A.-L., Herzig, C., Boutopoulou, A. & Kissi, A.E. (2016). The Nature and Determinants of Companies' Reporting on Decent Work Issues. Global Labor University Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa, September 2016.