How To Become An Agriculture Inspector: What It Is and Career Path

What is an agriculture inspector and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

An agriculture inspector analyzes and evaluates agricultural food products, as well as processing methods and techniques. This helps them ensure that all food products that come out of a given facility or plant pass safety standards and other applicable regulations set by the Food and Drug Administration.

Thus, most of an agriculture inspector's time is spent conducting inspections on agricultural products and the processes involved in producing them. But aside from that, the duties of an agriculture inspector also include creating reports based on their findings, recommending changes to production leads, and reporting any grave incidents or violations to the authorities.

If you want to become an agriculture inspector, you must have a degree in agriculture or agricultural technology. Furthermore, you must have a good understanding of FDA regulations, HACCP, GMP, and other relevant standards that apply to food production.

As an agriculture inspector, your salary can range from $35,000 to $93,000 per year. But on average, the pay for this role is around $57,000 per year.

ScoreAgriculture InspectorUS Average

Salary

3.6

Avg. Salary $45,614

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate -3%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.68%

Asian 5.04%

Black or African American 10.92%

Hispanic or Latino 23.31%

Unknown 3.65%

White 56.40%

Gender

female 33.64%

male 66.36%

Age - 53

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 53

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

4.6

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.3

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an agriculture inspector

Explore agriculture inspector education requirements

Most common agriculture inspector degrees

Bachelor's

64.4 %

Associate

15.8 %

High School Diploma

9.6 %

Start to develop specific agriculture inspector skills

Skills	Percentages
USDA	20.04%
Disease Control	14.05%
Inspection Reports	10.93%
Agricultural Products	9.73%
Federal Regulations	9.56%

Complete relevant agriculture inspector training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New agriculture inspectors learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an agriculture inspector based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real agriculture inspector resumes.

Research agriculture inspector duties and responsibilities

Insure product meet federal regulations for processing (GMP) as well as standards of identity.
Inspect agricultural commodities or relate operations, for compliance with laws and regulations governing health, quality, and safety.
Assist with administration of seasonal examinations to obtain certification for inspection of designate commodities.
Conduct dimensional and visual inspections procedures on CMM machines to ensure geometrical characteristics of the product are in specification.

Prepare your agriculture inspector resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your agriculture inspector resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an agriculture inspector resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable agriculture inspector resume templates

Build a professional agriculture inspector resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your agriculture inspector resume.