Background of Sokoine University of Agriculture
Background of SUA
The history of Sokoine University of Agriculture dates back to 1965 when it started as an Agricultural College offering diploma training in the discipline of agriculture.
After the dissolution of the University of East Africa and the consequent establishment of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) in July 1970, the College was transformed into a Faculty of Agriculture of University of Dar Es Salaam (UDSM) and thereby started offering Bachelor of Science in Agriculture.
In 1974, the Division of Forestry was established and hence the faculty was named Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry. The introduction of Bachelor of Veterinary Science in 1976 and the establishment of the Division of Veterinary Science, the Faculty was re-named “Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Sciences”.
The Faculty was on the 1st of July 1984 transformed, through Parliamentary Act No. 6 of 1984, into a full-fledged University and became known as Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA).
Following the restructuring of its management and organization structure in 2015, Currently SUA has four Colleges, one School and one Faculty namely;
1.Campus College of Agriculture,
2.Campus College of Social Sciences and Humanities,
3.College of Forestry wildlife and Tourism,
4.College of Veterinary and Medical Sciences (CVMS)
5.School of Agricultural Economics and Business Studies,and
6.Faculty of Science (FoS), which was established in 2001.
Other academic units includes;
1.Directorate of Research and Postgraduate Studies (DRPGS),
2.Directorate of Undergraduate Studies (DUS),
3.Directorate of Intellectual Property Management and Linkages (DIPML),
4.Directorate of Consultancy and Services(DCS),
5.Institute of Continuing Education (ICE),
6.Centre for Information and Communications Technology (CICT),
7.SUA Pest Management Centre (SPMC), and the
8.Sokoine National Agriculture Library (SNAL).
SUA also hosts the African Seed Health Centre and Virtual Centre known as “Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance”.
The university is located in Morogoro Municipality.It has 3,350 hectares of land for training, research and production in Morogoro municipality; 840 hectares of forest land in Arusha; 320 hectares of virgin forest for research in Usambara Mountains in Tanga and 500 hectares of miombo woodlands in Kitulanghalo in Morogoro region.
The university has four campuses namely, the Main Campus in Morogoro municipality,Solomon Mashlangu Campus (SMC) in Morogoro municipality; SUA Training Forest (SUATF) Olmotonyi in Arusha region and Mazumbai Forestry Reserve in Tanga
SUA’s academic business is guided by the university’s vision and missions as well as the Corporate Strategic plan (2005-2010), the latter that spells out plans in keeping with university’s core missions and functions as well as the need to remain competitive.
The Vision of the university is “is to become a centre of excellence and a valued member of the global academic community in agriculture and other related fields, with emphasis on impacting practical skills, entrepreneurship, research and intergration of basic and applied knowledge in an environmentally friendly manner.”.
The vision is guided through the mission, which is “to Promote development through training, research, extension, provision of services to the public and private sector in an environmentally friendly manner.”
SUA is offering 35 undergraduate Programmes in Certificates,Diploma and Bachelor degrees levels.Also it offers over 45 postgraduate degree programmes in various field and profession.
The University has a total of 8544 student population of which 265 are postgraduates, 8279 are undergraduates including non degrees programmes. It has a total of 1485 employees, 529 are academic members of staff of whom 58% are PhD holders and 835 are administrative staff of whom 36% are female.
With over 50 universities and university colleges in Tanzania SUA is the only university that offers degree programmes in the broad field of Agriculture.
SUA’s main research objective is to provide leadership in basic and applied research in order to generate science evidence knowledge and innovations that respond to contemporary and emerging needs.
SUA thus emphasizes that research becomes linked to development and societal issues. Research, outreach and consultancy services are driven by trained agricultural and natural resource manpower base that comprises 452 academic staff, out whom 50% have PhD qualifications.
Research capacity at SUA is further enhanced through collaborative research projects, which are supported by more than 50 memoranda of understanding. Currently, there are over 100+ ongoing researches and projects.
For more informations please contact:
The Vice-Chancellor
Sokoine University of Agriculture,
P.O. Box 3000 CHUO KIKUU,
Morogoro, Tanzania
Tel. +256 23 2640021,
Fax +255 23 2604573
Email: vc@suanet.ac.tz
Sokoine University of Agriculture ( SUA )