Starting next year, John Anderson will be in a position to provide strategic guidance to the Southern Agriculture Economics Association, an organization he says has helped shape him professionally for more than two decades.

Anderson, a native of Timbo in Stone County, is head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness for the U of A System Division of Agriculture and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

In February, Anderson was elected to be the next president of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association for 2024.

"It is an honor for me to have this opportunity to give back to an organization that has done so much for me," Anderson said. "I am looking forward to working closely with them and the rest of the SAEA Executive Council over the coming year."

Anderson has been a member of the SAEA since he was a graduate student in the late 1990s. His participation and involvement in the organization have helped shaped his professional outlook and provided him with countless opportunities.

"I have made lifelong friendships among my SAEA colleagues," Anderson said. "I have known the current president, Marco Palma, at Texas A&M, and past president, Rodney Holcomb, at Oklahoma State, for many years and have the utmost respect for them both."

The SAEA is a non-profit association comprised of economists striving to understand and explain the values and impacts of factors related to agricultural production, agribusiness, rural development and natural resources management in the Southern United States.

"John is a very respected leader throughout the land-grant system," said Deacue Fields, head of the U of A System Division of Agriculture and a past president of SAEA. "He will do a great job implementing programs for the SAEA. This is a great recognition of John's leadership that will provide tremendous visibility for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture."

Encouraged to Run

Rodney Holcomb, professor of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University, encouraged Anderson to stand for election.

"I'm a big fan of John Anderson. He's an outstanding agricultural economist who is greatly respected by peers in both academia and industry," Holcomb said. "He's also a strategic thinker with excellent people skills, which is why he's a good department head. That combination of talents is exactly what the SAEA needs, and that's why I encouraged him to run for the office."

Anderson was elected by a vote of the membership that includes 400 members of SAEA. The organization has a three-year rotation for the president's office where the candidate-elect will serve as president-elect for one year, president for the second year and past president for the third year.

For that three-year period, Anderson will sit on the SAEA Executive Council to help provide strategic leadership to the organization and assist in managing the association's functions, the primary functions being the organization and execution of the annual meeting and management of the SAEA's peer-reviewed journal, the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics.

For more than 20 years, Anderson has worked as a professional agricultural economist in both academic and industry positions. His work has involved describing and assessing the farm- and sector-level impacts of policy, regulatory and market developments across a wide variety of agricultural commodities and markets. He has served as a faculty member, with primary appointments in extension, at the University of Kentucky and Mississippi State University. He received his bachelor's in agribusiness from College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, a Master of Agriculture at Arkansas State University and his Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Oklahoma State University.

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.

About the Division of Agriculture: The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture's mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation's historic land grant education system. The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses. The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

About the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences: Bumpers College provides life-changing opportunities to position and prepare graduates who will be leaders in the businesses associated with foods, family, the environment, agriculture, sustainability and human quality of life; and who will be first-choice candidates of employers looking for leaders, innovators, policy makers and entrepreneurs. The college is named for Dale Bumpers, former Arkansas governor and longtime U.S. senator who made the state prominent in national and international agriculture. For more information about Bumpers College, visit our website, and follow us on Twitter at @BumpersCollege and Instagram at BumpersCollege.