A. A. Johnson received a B.S. from North Dakota Agricultural College in 1936 and an M.S. from Michigan State University in 1938. After serving as an Extension specialist in farm crops at Michigan, he came to Cornell in 1946 as associate professor of plant breeding. He was promoted to professor in 1948. He was involved in the National Foundation Seed Project, in the International Crop Improvement Association, the New York Foundation Seed Stocks Cooperative, and the New York Certified Seed Growers' Cooperative. He worked on the U.S. Aid to Greece program with plant breeding stations in Greece. He also served on a team of Ford Foundation consultants in India from 1960-1961. In 1962 he was named Director of Extension at Cornell. In 1967, he left Cornell to become the Ford Foundation's program advisor and team leader for agriculture in India.