The AIA began in 1920 as the Northern and Southern Locals of the Canadian Society of Technical Agriculturalists. The national organization became the Agricultural Institute of Canada in 1945, and in 1947 the Alberta Government passed the Agrologists Act, which conferred professional status on agrologists under the regulation of the new Alberta Institute of Agrologists. The AIA's mandate is to maintain professional standards for agrology and to communicate to the government and to the public its concerns regarding its profession, agricultural education and research, and the role of agriculture and agrology in the community.