Separated from Yunnan University in 1958, the School of Agriculture was renamed 'Kunming Agriculture and Forestry College' (KAFC). The formal title, Yunnan Agricultural University, was adopted in 1971 because of the merger between KAFC and Yunnan Agriculture Working University (YAWU). It has beenauthorized to confer Master’s Degree since 1983 anddeveloped as a key university of Yunnan Province since 1993. In 2003, it was authorized to confer doctor’s degrees. and in 2007, it established the center for post-doctoral studies.Since 2009,Yunnan Agricultural University has taken initiative to meet the needs of economic and social development to establish the Yunnan Rural Cadre Institute, Yunnan Province Food Safety Management Institute and Yunnan Agriculture Industry Research Institute with Plateau Characteristics. Approved by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science and Technology,the New Rural Development Research Institute of Yunnan Agricultural University was established in 2013.

    YAU covers an area of 3803 mu and the area of the campus buildingsis about624,000square meters.There are 1848 teaching staff of whom 1 isacademician and over 700 are professors. There are 22,536 full-time students and 8,412 adult students undertaking their continuing education at YAU. With 22 colleges, our university cooperates with 75 universities in 23 countries, and was qualified for issuing Chinese Government Scholarship to international students in 2014.

    There are 5 national-level teaching, scientific research and social service platforms named National Engineering Research Center for Agricultural Biodiversity Application, National Agricultural Professional Basic Experimental Teaching Model Center, Provincial and Ministerial-level National Key Laboratory of Biological Resources Protection and Utilization in Yunnan, China-ASEAN Education and Training Center. It also has 50 ministerial and provincial-level research platforms, such as National Agricultural Big Data Center (Yunnan) and Joint Innovation and Practice Center for Chinese Herbs in Southwest China, and 227 off-campus fields for practice. At present, there are 25 provincial and ministerial-level key disciplines, 1 center for post-doctoral studies, 10 doctoral programs, 58 master’s degree programs and 72 bachelor’s degree programs. There are 12 national and provincial-level teaching teams, 31 national and provincial-level Outstanding Teachers and 46 national and provincial-level teaching awards, and 252 national and provincial-level teaching research projects. There are 2 National Reform Pilot Programs, 2 National Excellent Engineers Programs, 2 National Excellent Forestry Talents Programs, 4 National Off-campus Practical Base for College Students, 2 National Excellent Shared Courses, 1 National Excellent Open Course, 2 Yunnan Innovative Talents Cultivation Projects and 80 published textbooks for the 12th Five-Year Plan.

    YAU has undertaken over 3100 key projects with United Nations Global Environment Fund, European union Project, National 973 Plan, 863 Plan, Science and Technology Support Project and National Fund. Our university was once awarded the first prize by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Scientific Research, Outstanding Achievement Award by International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), second prize of State Technological Invention, HLHL Prize for Progress in Science and Technology and other 370 prizes in science and technology progress.

    Academician, Mr. ZHU Youyong and his team published the cover paper in Nature. The establishment of crop diversity optimization planting technology and the winter potato pollution-free super high yield technology has been listed as a major scientific and technological achievement by Yunnan government, and the research results have been applied over an area of 2 million mu; Professor LI Zhengyou’s team realized the hybrid rice of three lines in China, winning the National Science Conference Award and creating a world record of 1,108.55kg in hybrid rice yield; Professor ZENG Yangzi with his team members have been studying Xishuangbanna miniature pig inbred line for 35 years and have bred 28 generations, which has reached world level; centered on biological resources utilization and exploitation in Yunnan province, Professor SHENG Jun and his team provide important technical support for the transformation and upgrading of Yunnan agriculture with plateau characteristics, the Agricultural Big Data and Pu’er Tea and its products; Professor WEI Hongjiang and the research team successfully cloned the first endogenous retrovirus activity inactivated swine with the cooperation of American scientists, making a number of breakthroughs in xenotransplantation research and their research papers have been published in the Science, and all of these achievements have made great contributions to the world.