Dr. Badenhop joined the faculty of the university’s Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology in 1946 and continued to serve on the faculty until his retirement in 1988. He gained recognition as a specialist in agricultural marketing and economic development and authored many journal articles, Agricultural Experiment Station bulletins, and miscellaneous monographs. He was a leader in establishing a program in international agriculture, serving as a consultant in agricultural marketing to national and local governments in several developing countries.
From 1960 to 1964, he served as chief of party for a Tennessee USAID contract team that was involved in the development of universities in India and patterned after the concept of US land-grant universities. He received the Morgan Chapter Gamma Sigma Delta Research Merit Award (1976) and the Quality of Communication Award from the American Agricultural Economics Association (1977). His intellectual contributions to the life of the university have been recognized by placement of a plaque in his honor on a faculty study.