Professional Designations to Know in Agronomy

Pursuing a professional designation either on its own, or to complement your existing education and experience, is an excellent way to prove credibility in a certain field of expertise. While job hunting for research roles in soil, plant, or animal science, it’s common to see that Masters or PhD is required; agriculture has its own unique set of professional designations to help you differentiate yourself.

Each professional designation is typically governed by an industry institute or association. These bodies have varying requirements depending on the designation, often mixing courses and experience. They operate to a high standard of ethics and expect the same of their members. This group can also provide you with vital mentoring throughout your career.

Many of the designations that are unique to agriculture fall under the agronomy umbrella, let’s take a look at some:

Professional Agrologist (Canada –P.Ag, USA – CPAg) – In Canada each province has a self-regulatory organization that facilitates the requirements of the program. In the US the American Society of Agronomy is responsible. There are several sub-designations under these bodies including:

• Certified Crop Advisor(CCA) –in the US this designation can be obtained with less schooling and experience. In Canada’s prairie provinces the Prairie Certified Crop Advisor Board provides the CCA designation, a university degree is not required, but there are more and more frequent standardized exams to maintain your designation.

• Articling Agronomist(A.Ag)& Agrologist in Training (AIT) – These designations are for those working towards their P.Ag or CPAg

• Agrology Technologist (T.Ag) Registered Technologist in Agrology (RTAg) – these designations are not offered in every province, but offer a path or designations for those who have a diploma rather than a degree

• The Canadian Consulting Agrologists Association, Canadian Association of Management Consultants, and the American Society of Agricultural Consultants offer these designations; Certified Agricultural Consultant (CAC), or Certified Agricultural Advisor (CAA)

There are also many other individual designations and courses like:

• The Canadian Certified Crop Advisor Association’s Certified Crop Advisor (CCA)
• Canadian Association of Farm Advisors’ Certified Agricultural Farm Advisor (CAFA)
• Canadian Professional Sales Association’s Professional Sales Certificate
• Canadian Agri-Marketing Association’s Certificate in AgriMarketing
• American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers’ designations for: Accredited Farm Manager, the Accredited Rural Appraiser, the Real Property Review Appraisers and the Accredited Agricultural Consultant.

There are hundreds more designations, that aren’t unique to Agriculture, but are still needed in the industry like the Certificate in Human Resource Management(CHRM), and accounting designations. There are far too many to mention here, but if you know your career path, you can check out the hundreds of career profiles on AgCareers.com to see which associations are affiliated with each career path.

Sometimes educational programs also have these certifications built in; check out our University Partners.