Professor Karaan is the Dean of the Faculty of Agri-Sciences at the University of Stellenbosch. He is former Chairperson of the National Agricultural Marketing Council and president of the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa.

He serves on the board of the Land Bank and the Agricultural Research Council of South Africa, and is present chair of the National Agricultural Research Forum. He graduated from Stellenbosch University in 1990 with a BSc Agric degree and eventually completed an MSc Agric in 1994 and a PhD (Agric) in 2006. He joined the Development Bank of Southern Africa in Johannesburg as an economist and later returned to Stellenbosch to join the Rural Foundation as Head of Research.

In 1996 he joined Stellenbosch University as a lecturer in the Agricultural Faculty. In October 2008 he became Dean of the Faculty of AgriSciences at Stellenbosch University and was reappointed in November 2013 for a second term. From 1 May 2014, Prof Karaan was appointed as the Acting Vice-Rector: Community Interaction & Personnel at Stellenbosch University.