I read with much loathing how the American Society of Agronomy/ICCA Board is going to make the Certified Professional Agronomist (CPAg) certification part of the Certified Crop Advisor (CCA) program. Very disappointing, but expected, knowing how much control the fertilizer dealers have in the ASA/ICCA anymore.
The ICCA board continues to, in my opinion, to work at destroying all other agronomist certifications while promoting and selling fertilizer sales people as professional agronomists at the expense of all others. They have now succeeded with killing off the CPAg by taking a higher standard and making it part of a lower standard I suspect they will work on the other soils certifications in the future as well.
The CPAg was really the only certification for professional agronomists and not those who were trying to make a buck pushing a product. There is no certification for those who are not tied to sales other than some of the independent consulting organizations who offer a “jacked up” certification program that is pretty much a joke as well.
The whole “A CCA can be TSP’s for NRCS” line is also bogus, as many of the plans done by fertilizer dealer CCA’s in this area were rejected because they can’t follow directions or make sound agronomic recommendations. Plus, there is very little TSP work do be done with most all agencies out of money.
Most of the CCA continuing education credits are done in-house by the big chain dealers so their getting sales training and calling it education. Illinois CCA is an even bigger joke as they don’t even publish or give notice of meetings where CCA credits are available, other than their own convention. Just look at their website. They haven’t updated meetings since 2008/2009 and haven’t updated it at all since the last state CCA convention. So the state board does little to help CCAs or CPAg’s that are not affiliated with a dealer get any continuing education credits.
Yes, I am a CPAg, an unhappy CPAg after reading this announcement. I have also been a CCA for almost 20 years, I think. I will have to very seriously rethink renewing my certifications and membership in the ASA this year. There is little reason to be certified anymore.
Comments are very on target. NAICC certification is still a higher standard, but very much unknown. They are also eliminating the Certified Professional Soil Classifier designation.