KA (Kwame) Kwarteng, MSc

Who is Kwame?

I am a cocoa farmer’s son from Ghana. Growing up, I saw firsthand the hard work that goes into producing cocoa beans, but I also saw the harsh reality of how less, farmers who carry the weight of this industry, are actually valued. This unfairness is what drove me out of the fields into research. I spent years working across the cocoa supply chain and running projects in Ghana, but I kept coming back to the same troubling questions: Why the felling of powerlessness amount cocoa farmers while simultneously reconigsed as the backbone of the Cocoa-Chocolate Industry? Why is cocoa and cocoa farmers one of the most studied in academia and industry, yet their major vulnerabilities still remain the same if not worse?

What am I doing at WUR?

I joined the Public Administration and Policy group in May 2026 as a PhD researcher to turn these questions into answers. My research focuses on governing African food system transformations by looking at cocoa value chains through the lenses of political economy and decoloniality. By doing this, I want to unmask why inequalities for smallholder cocoa farmers keep being reproduced year after year. Only when we truly understand these root structural issues can we design the governance policies and industry practices needed to secure a sustainable, fair future and equal participation for the farmers at the heart of the value chain.

Beyond the PhD

I believe that academic research shouldn't just sit in a university library, it needs to speak to the real world. Every week, I write The Cocoa Diaries, a simple, no-nonsense newsletter where I break down global cocoa trade issues for everyday readers, industry experts, and policymakers. I also founded PolicyCON, a digital platform built to bring diverse voices into policy analysis and help close the gap between big decisions and societal impact.

Before coming to Wageningen, I collected a diverse set of tools to help me with this mission. I hold a master's degree in international development (Globalisation trade and Industry Pathway) from The University of Manchester (UK); an MBA from the University of the People (US), a bachelor's degree in project management from GIMPA (Ghana), and a higher national diploma in marketing from Kumasi Technical University (Ghana).