Ethics: The Foundation of Our Reputation and Our Certification.

Crop Advisors and Agronomists often are asked to perform a wide range of tasks throughout each season.  The life of many crop advisors and agronomists is fast-paced, has long hours, and can tend to be a little over-whelming at times.  Between the demands of farmers, ranchers, staff, marketing, research, field work and billing it is sometimes difficult to have time to consider more than just what needs to get done next.  With this demanding of a schedule, one might ask where to fit in thinking about ethics and appropriate conduct.  Those of you that are certified signed a Code of Ethics when you became certified.  Have you looked at the Code of Ethics since?  Do you remember what it says?  Do you follow it? Are you sure?  At times ethics can become a gray area in our professional lives.  A review of professional ethics is useful from time to time to remind the agronomic professional of the need to be cognizant of the Code of Ethics as well as the ramifications should that code be violated.  This talk will review the content and purpose of the Code of Ethics and ask for your input on what the most ethics response is in various professional and agronomic situations.  This presentation will fulfill the requirement for 1 CEU in ethics for CPSS’s and CPSC’s or count as 1 CEU in Professional development for CCA’s and CPAg’s.