Get certified
The benchmark of excellence
The Certified Crop Adviser (CCA) Program is established as a benchmark for agronomy professionals that provides base-level standards for agronomic knowledge through a national and regional testing process and raises those standards through continuing education. Being certified emphasizes credibility and recognizes that you are committed and experienced in what you do.
When you become certified, you join more than 13,000 of your peers in the largest, most recognized agriculturally oriented certification program in North America that validates your commitment. The CCA program’s professional standards are widely respected by industry, academia, and government agencies and are referenced in statutes.
The goal of the program is to enable agriculture as an industry to meet its environmental stewardship objective.
Why get certified
CCAs connect their knowledge of agronomy, experience in the field, and commitment to standards of knowledge and professionalism to connect science and research to the farms and fields where science goes to work. CCAs are the professional conduit between scientists and their research and the on-farm expertise of the farmers who put that work into practice.
There’s a reason more and more employers across the U.S. and around the world cite the CCA credential as a preference, or even a requirement, when hiring agronomists. It’s because the CCA credential says a lot about you: your knowledge of agronomy, your experience in the field, your commitment to standards of knowledge and professionalism.
When you put those three letters behind your name, it tells employers they can trust you with their top clients. It means that you’ve literally been put to the test. It gives them confidence that your advice is grounded in science and best practice. It gives them comfort that you can be relied upon to mitigate problems while creating opportunities.
What good is a globally recognized credential for agronomists if it doesn’t have relevance to the soils, the climate, the pests, and the prevailing crops within your region? Yes, a portion of CCA Program is an exam that measures your general command of agronomic practices that are relevant anywhere in the world. But the exam includes a component to gauge your knowledge of topics specific to your region.
That’s why the CCA Program is globally respected, because it always is grounded in the specific realities where you live and work. Its content is based on the real-world challenges and opportunities you and your clients face on a day-to-day, season-to-season basis.
There’s “book smart” and there’s “farm smart.” There is science and research … and then how science intersects with reality. And the beauty of the CCA Program is that it connects the latest scientific research with the realities of what’s happening on farms and in fields. After all, what good is a nutrient management plan if it’s stuck in a drawer?
A significant value of the CCA Program and the CCA community is that it creates a genuine and active feedback loop: connecting science and research to the farms and fields in which that science goes to work through our network of CCAs, and then, as importantly, taking the results and the feedback from those farms and fields back to the scientists and the researchers, again, through our network of CCAs.
As part of the CCA network and community, you get to play a key role in making this connection.
Making the CCA credential more relevant and meaningful is that it demonstrates your commitment to education and ethical practice on an ongoing basis. To maintain your credential, you commit to earning 40 continuing education units (CEUs) every two years to ensure your achievement remains relevant with the changing practices within agronomy. Another commitment you make as a CCA is to its Code of Ethics, which compels every CCA to act in a responsible manner not only in your engagement with clients, but in your stewardship of natural resources and the environment.
