TL;DR: Agriculture is one of the most licensed course clusters in the Philippines. The PRC maintains boards for Agriculture, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Fisheries, Food Technology, Foresters and Veterinary Medicine — six of them. Three of those professions had their governing law rewritten recently: forestry by RA 10690, fisheries by RA 11398, food technology by RA 11052 with its first licensure exam only in August 2024, and agriculture itself by RA 12215, approved 29 May 2025. BS Agribusiness and BS Environmental Science have no board. Older course guides get most of this wrong.
This is a routing page. Each programme has its own guide on this site with the unit breakdown and exam structure. What this page gives you is the whole cluster at once, plus the licensing changes that make most published advice on this topic obsolete.
The Programmes and Their Orders
| Programme | CHED order | PRC licence | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| BS Agriculture | CMO 23, s. 2021 | Yes, RA 12215 | BS Agriculture guide |
| BS Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering | CMO 94, s. 2017 | Yes, RA 8559 as amended by RA 10915 | BSABE guide |
| BS Fisheries | CMO 33, s. 2021 | Yes, RA 11398 | BS Fisheries guide |
| BS Forestry | CMO 6, s. 2019 | Yes, RA 10690 | BS Forestry guide |
| BS Food Technology | CMO 7, s. 2019 | Yes, RA 11052 | BS Food Technology guide |
| Doctor of Veterinary Medicine | CMO 1, s. 2018 | Yes, RA 9268 | DVM guide |
| BS Agribusiness | CMO 24, s. 2007 | No board | BS Agribusiness guide |
| BS Environmental Science | see note below | No board | BS Environmental Science guide |
Two entries need explaining. BS Environmental Science does not sit in a single tidy order the way the others do — it is a natural science programme that overlaps forestry, fisheries and chemistry, and its regulatory position differs from theirs. BS Agribusiness still runs under a 2007 order, which is unusually old for an actively offered programme; the general education component follows CMO No. 20, series of 2013 like everything else.
The Licence Changes Most Guides Missed
Four of the six licensed professions in this cluster had their laws replaced within the last decade. If you are reading course advice written before 2025, assume it is wrong on at least one of these.
Agriculture — Republic Act No. 12215. The Philippine Agriculturists Act, approved 29 May 2025, is now the governing statute. It created a Professional Regulatory Board of Agriculture under the administrative supervision and control of the PRC and set out a written licensure examination. Our BS Agriculture guide and the agriculturist board exam guide work from the statute itself.
Food technology — Republic Act No. 11052. This is the change that catches the most people. The Philippine Food Technology Act, approved 29 June 2018, created the Board of Food Technology, and the PRC administered the first Food Technologists Licensure Examination in August 2024. For decades food technology was an unlicensed degree, and a large amount of career advice online still says so. It is no longer true.
Fisheries — Republic Act No. 11398. The Board of Fisheries was originally created by PRC resolution using the Fisheries Code of 1998 as its legal basis, and the first Fisheries Technologist examination was held in 2003. The Philippine Fisheries Profession Act now governs the profession by statute.
Forestry — Republic Act No. 10690. The Forestry Profession Act replaced Republic Act No. 6239, the older Forestry Profession Law. Material citing RA 6239 as current is describing a repealed statute.
Agricultural engineering — Republic Act No. 8559 as amended by Republic Act No. 10915. The Philippine Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Act renamed and broadened the profession. This is why the degree is BSABE rather than BSAE, and why the CHED order, CMO No. 94, series of 2017, uses the longer name.
Veterinary medicine — Republic Act No. 9268. The DVM is a professional doctorate rather than a four-year bachelor's, with its own admission structure. See the veterinary board exam guide.
For the licence question across every field rather than agriculture alone, see our list of courses with board exams.
Where These Programmes Are Offered
Agriculture and fisheries education has its own institutional network, which is why the geography of these programmes looks different from, say, business or IT.
CHED administers the National Agriculture and Fisheries Education System, under which specific institutions are designated as National Universities and Colleges of Agriculture and Fisheries (NUCAFs) and Provincial Institutes of Agriculture and Fisheries (PIAFs). The implementing guidelines were issued as CMO No. 31, series of 2009, with the designated lists and later amendments running through CMO No. 18, series of 2009, CMO No. 32, series of 2009, CMO No. 25, series of 2010, CMO No. 18, series of 2013 and CMO No. 13, series of 2022.
The practical effect: the strongest agriculture programmes are concentrated in state universities and colleges with land, laboratories, experimental farms and extension mandates. A private school offering BS Agriculture without demonstration farms or field stations is offering something structurally different, however similar the course list looks on paper.
CHED also runs sector-specific financing. The Student Agribusiness Enterprise Loan Fund was established through CMO No. 16, series of 2013 and amended by CMO No. 84, series of 2017, and the CHED Tulong Agri Program was issued as CMO No. 24, series of 2021. Terms and availability change by cycle, so check with the CHED regional office rather than relying on any figure you read secondhand.
Veterinary Medicine Is Structurally Different
The DVM does not belong in the same sentence as the bachelor's degrees above, and applicants who treat it as one lose a year.
It is a professional doctorate, governed by CMO No. 1, series of 2018, and licensed under Republic Act No. 9268. That means a longer programme, a heavier clinical component, and an admission process closer to medicine than to a four-year agriculture degree.
Admission is the part to check carefully. CHED once required a National Veterinary Admission Test, and then issued CMO No. 5, series of 2017, "Suspension of the Administration of the National Veterinary Admission Test (NVAT) Effective Academic Year (AY) 2017-2018." Because that arrangement has moved before, confirm the current admission requirement directly with the veterinary school and the CHED regional office rather than relying on any secondhand description — including this one.
CHED also issued guidance specific to the programme's practical components, including CMO No. 38, series of 2021 on the conduct of veterinary skills development and clinical internship. The pattern across all of these orders is the same: the clinical and field components are the regulated part, and they are what distinguishes a serious programme from a paper one. Our DVM guide covers the degree in detail.
How to Choose Within the Cluster
These degrees look interchangeable from outside and are not.
BS Agriculture is a science degree, not a farming course. It covers crop science, animal science, soil science, plant protection and agricultural economics, and its graduates work in research, extension, agri-input companies, government agencies and management roles. If you want the licence, this is the programme that leads to it.
BSABE is engineering. It sits in the 2017 engineering batch alongside civil and mechanical engineering, follows CMO 86's common requirements, and is taught with the maths and physics load that implies. It is not a lighter alternative to BS Agriculture — it is a different discipline. Our full engineering course list puts it in context.
BS Agribusiness is a business degree. No board exam, no laboratory-heavy curriculum. It suits people aiming at trading, cooperatives, supply chain, agri-finance or running a family enterprise. Judge it as you would a business programme: internships, industry linkage and where graduates actually place.
Food technology has become a licensed career path. With the board now operating, the calculus for this degree changed. Manufacturing, quality assurance and regulatory affairs roles in the food industry sit downstream of it.
Fisheries and forestry are narrow but statutory. Both have small graduate cohorts and concentrated employers — government agencies, resource management bodies, aquaculture and forestry enterprises. Small can be an advantage when the licence is a genuine barrier to entry, and a disadvantage if you later want to move sideways.
Check the licence law before you check the school. Because four of these six professions were re-legislated recently, admission requirements, examination structure and even the professional title may differ from what a school's own webpage says. Read the statute, then ask the school how its curriculum maps to it.
Sources
- Commission on Higher Education — 2021 CHED Memorandum Orders, including CMO No. 23 on BS Agriculture and CMO No. 33 on BS Fisheries
- Commission on Higher Education — 2019 CHED Memorandum Orders, including CMO No. 6 on BS Forestry and CMO No. 7 on BS Food Technology
- Commission on Higher Education — 2017 CHED Memorandum Orders, including CMO No. 94 on BS Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
- Commission on Higher Education — 2018 CHED Memorandum Orders, including CMO No. 1 on the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
- Commission on Higher Education — 2007 CHED Memorandum Orders, including CMO No. 24 on BS Agribusiness
- Commission on Higher Education — 2009 CHED Memorandum Orders, including CMO No. 31 on NUCAFs and PIAFs
- LawPhil — Republic Act No. 12215, Philippine Agriculturists Act
- LawPhil — Republic Act No. 11052, Philippine Food Technology Act
- Supreme Court E-Library — PRC Resolution No. 2000-664, Creation of the Board of Fisheries under the Professional Regulation Commission
- Professional Regulation Commission — List of Professional Regulatory Boards
