UAM Alumni Association,
National Secretariat,
Alumni Relations Office,
University of Agriculture,
P.M.B. 102373, Makurdi, Benue State.
044-533204, 533205

ABOUT UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE MAKURDI

The University of Agriculture, Makurdi (UAM) was established by the Federal  Government in January 1988. The University was one of the two agricultural universities to pioneer new institutional approaches to the generation and dissemination of new agricultural technologies. It succeeded the Makurdi Campus of the University of Jos (established in 1984) which, in turn, had succeeded the old Federal University of Technology, Makurdi (established 1980).

The locational advantage of UAM derives directly from the agro-ecological importance of the Savannah middle belt in Nigerian agriculture. The ecology of this zone supports extensive arable cropping and livestock production as well as fruit, palm and other economic trees. In particular, the area represents a rich convergence zone for the country's grains, legumes, roots and tubers and tree crop economies that constitute the central pillars of the nation's nutrition. The University is located in Benue State, a State generally acclaimed by objective observers as Nigeria's "Food Basket".

In concept, the University of Agriculture, Makurdi draws from the valuable experiences of similar institutions in other parts of the world. In North America, Asia and Europe, agricultural universities have made tremendous contributions to food and agricultural self reliance, as well as the generation of foreign exchange earnings. These countries include the United States of America, The Netherlands, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Japan, Sweden and Bulgaria to mention a few. In Africa, Cameroon, Tanzania, Kenya and Morocco have also established agricultural universities.

The underlying philosophy is that the average Nigerian farmer should have easy access to the fruits of scientific agriculture. This means that the university scientific community must work on the key practical problems of village farmers. In addition, the students, to become useful and effective extension agents, must be adequately exposed to the discipline of practical farm planning, production and marketing and a period of supervised farming internship arms village level. The basic philosophy then is the democratization and liberalization of scientific agriculture in Nigeria, with small scale farmers in the vanguard.

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