After completing his BSc Agric Hons in Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University PROF JOHANN KIRSTEN started his career as an agricultural economist in the South African government where he quickly learned about agricultural economics in practice. In that period he completed his MSc Agric at the University of Pretoria and published several papers from the thesis.
In 1992 he joined University of Pretoria as a lecturer, and this started his academic career of more than 30 years while also completing his PhD in 1994. For twenty of these years, Johann was Professor and Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Pretoria (1996 -2016). In this period, he supervised many M and PhD students and developed the UP department into one of the leading Agricultural Economic departments on the African continent. During the years at UP he was President of the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (2001-2003), and during 2006-2009 also vice president of the International Association of Agricultural Economists which gave him the responsibility of crafting the academic programme for the conference in Beijing, China in 2009.
Johann’s research focus was always on matters related to agricultural policy. At first it was on agricultural development policy, then on land reform policy and for the last 20 years on policy and economic matters related to ‘origin-based foods’. In this regard his research activities contributed to the establishment of regulations in South Africa in 2019 and then finally the registration of Karoo Lamb as South Africa’s first Geographical Indication on 27 October 2023. This is a life achievement and involved the interplay between intellectual property rights, law, economics, meat science, pasture science, geography, chemistry, etc.
With his move to Stellenbosch University in 2016 Johann’s academic focus changed to macroeconomics as the Director of the Bureau for Economic Research. Despite being largely an administrative and strategic leadership position he continued to foster his career in agricultural economics by supervising students at the M and PhD level.
