Post Doctoral Fellow

Postdoctoral Research Position

This position is a one-year postdoc appointment within the Fryar Price Risk Management Center of Excellence in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness starting January 2027. Relevant expertise for consideration includes price risk management; developing and applying derivatives in agricultural and related markets; behavioral economics approaches to risk assessment and management; agricultural finance; commodity marketing; or closely related disciplines.

This position will be responsible for three distinct outputs: 1- Interactive Hedging Tool Hedging decision tools for a broad range of row crop and livestock farm operations will be developed, and the tools will be made freely available from the Fryar Center website. Locking in profitable margins is a key aspect of farmer marketing, and the decision tools will guide farmers on what margins they may expect to earn based on a range of hedging strategies and market price outcomes. Farmers will enter key variables through a user-friendly interface related to their expected outputs and inputs and their choice of marketing strategy. For example, a row crop farmer would enter information about their planted acres, expected yields, production costs/acre, storage costs, and basis levels in their local markets. Based on these variables, the decision tools will generate a range of potential profit margins and the associated likelihood of each outcome. The tools will generate different market pricing outcomes based on current and historical prices under various supply and demand conditions. The tools will help farmers make informed risk-return marketing decisions under different market pricing scenarios. 2- Monthly USDA Report Summaries USDA reports (WASDE, grain stocks, cattle on feed) provide important pricing information based on current supply and demand conditions across commodity markets. Industry (from farmers to end users) uses this information to make hedging and marketing decisions. Our monthly report summary will provide an in-depth overview of how supply and demand numbers have changed since the previous report and how they compare with the market's expectations (taken from Bloomberg) before the report's release. It will summarize futures price and calendar spread price movements based on the latest supply and demand picture. The report will also provide a Fryar forecast of future price ranges that markets will likely trade at (broken down into high, mid, and low ranges). The forecasts will be generated by stocks to use models and the options market's implied volatility. These price ranges will provide useful information for industry to make hedging and marketing decisions and can be used as inputs for Fryar Center hedging decision tools. The report will also give general hedging advice based on current market conditions, and it will highlight profitable pricing conditions (i.e., when new crop futures are higher than national average production costs per bushel). Markets with profitable prices will be highlighted in black, and those with unprofitable prices in red. The report can be supplemented with a podcast explaining why prices moved in a certain direction. Once the report format is established, it will be relatively easy to update monthly. The key goal is to provide a central source of information about USDA reports that will be useful to a wide variety of industry users and policymakers. 3- Interactive WASDE Dashboard The Fryar Center will develop an interactive USDA WASDE dashboard and make it available through the Fryar Center website. The dashboard will provide agricultural producers, industry participants, and policymakers with market implications of new WASDE reports. It will summarize important changes in supply and demand estimates, compare new information with market expectations and previous reports, and show how futures markets respond following each report release. The dashboard will also provide historical context to help users evaluate the significance of new WASDE information and associated market movements. The underlying data and analytical framework will be designed so the dashboard can be updated following each WASDE release and expanded across major agricultural commodities. The goal is to create a permanent Fryar Center resource that translates WASDE information into timely and useful information for commodity marketing and price risk management decisions.

The primary measure of success for this position will be the consistent development and delivery of high-quality, impactful products aligned with the objectives outlined above. The emphasis will be on producing applied research, reports, outreach materials, decision-support tools, presentations, and other deliverables that advance the Center's mission and provide value to agricultural stakeholders. The Postdoctoral Fellow will meet monthly with Fryar Center faculty to report progress, discuss challenges, establish priorities, and ensure that ongoing activities remain aligned with Center objectives. Because the position is intended to support an integrated Center-wide research and outreach agenda, the Postdoctoral Fellow must receive approval from the Director of the Fryar Center before initiating research projects or major activities outside the priorities and objectives established for the position.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers a vibrant work environment and a workplace culture that promotes a healthy work-life balance.