The QS World University Ranking system has released its latest standings for the world’s top agriculture universities, showcasing fifty exceptional programs on their website. While the top spot went to Wageningen University in the Netherlands, the strength of American agriculture universities continues to shine as twenty two of the top fifty spots went to U.S. agriculture programs, including seven of the top ten programs.

The rankings aim to help prospective students identify the world’s leading schools in their chosen field, with the list of subjects extended each year in response to high demand for subject-level comparisons. As recent data from the website AgCareers.com suggests, interest in careers involving the agriculture industry has spiked 33% this year. Students interested in pursing a career in agriculture can take confidence in the quality of education offered to them in American programs.

The University of California-Davis took the number two spot on the list, followed by Cornell University in the number three rank, the University of California-Berkeley ranking in fourth place, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison tied for the number five spot with Agro, ParisTech. These four Universities boast outstanding research programs, with a large focus on research-based education. The schools are also considered large or extra large by QS standards, and have programs that are over 100 years old.

Other American Universities in the top ten are Michigan State University, Purdue University, and Iowa State University, highlighting the strong presence of successful agriculture programs throughout the Midwestern region of the United States.

The rankings are determined by analyzing the university’s academic reputation and employer reputation for graduates of their agriculture programs, the number of research citations per paper for research published from the University’s agriculture program faculty, and the University’s Hirsch Index, a way of measuring both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist’s most cited papers and the number of citations that s/he has received in other publications.