Shanxi Agricultural University (Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences) is a famous agricultural university in China. It is one of the excellent universities for undergraduate teaching evaluation conducted by the Ministry of Education. It has been co-sponsored by the Shanxi Provincial Government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Shanxi Agricultural University (SXAU) was founded in 1907 as a private Mingxian School. In 1951, Shanxi Agricultural College was set up to be a public institution instead of the private one. In 1979, it was renamed as Shanxi Agricultural University and became one of the 99 national key universities at the beginning of the reform and opening up. In October 2019, with the view to overall reform and development of higher education and agricultural research in Shanxi, Shanxi Provincial Party Committee and Government decided to merge the Shanxi Agricultural University with the Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences into a new Shanxi Agricultural University, ushering in a new chapter of reform and development.

SXAU has two campuses, Taigu Campus and Taiyuan Longcheng Campus, and research institutes all over the province, among which there are 22 teaching units and 20 directly affiliated research institutes (centers). SXAU encompasses eight academic fields in agriculture, science, engineering, economics, management, humanities, law and art, offering 71 undergraduate specialties. At present, there are one national key discipline of animal genetics, breeding and reproduction, and nine provincial key disciplines, including agricultural engineering, crop science, horticulture, agricultural resources & environment, plant protection, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, forestry, and grassland science. SXAU now has two disciplines listed on one-percent of global ESI (Essential Science Indicator), namely, Agricultural Science and Plant & Animal Science.

SXAU currently has 1349 full-time teachers, 1938 full-time researchers among whom there are 813 Ph.D. and postgraduate supervisors. There are over 27,000 full-time students. Among them, there are 23,948 undergraduate students and 3602 master and doctoral students. Since its establishment, SXAU cultivated more than 150,000 talents of various types among whom 7 have become academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering; they have made significant contributions to the economic and social development of Shanxi and the whole country.

SXAU has enforced a 100-year friendship with Oberlin College in the USA, attached great importance on international R&D cooperation, for instance, a national-level international R&D cooperation base commissioned by Ministry of Science and Technology has been set up in 2009 and conducted close exchanges with overseas universities and institutions in more than 10 countries globally, including United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), National Weather Service in Zambia, Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Czech, Wageningen University in the Netherlands, University of Melbourne in Australia, Massey University in New Zealand, UC Davis, University of Hawaii, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the US and so forth. With an enduring dedication to broaden channels, SXAU is committed to establishing national and ministerial professional technical training classes abroad so as to pushing forward domestic development by international cooperation, which upgrades innovation capacity all-round and sets a good example of global exchanges. SXAU now has international students from Iran, India, and Pakistan.

SXAU sticks to the rule of “supremacy of innovation” and keep lifting innovation capacity. Now, there are 7 national and 130 provincial scientific research platforms. After Jinzhong National Agricultural High-tech Industry Demonstration Zone (Shanxi Nonggu) has been successfully approved in 2019, SXAU is indispensable in constructing it as a national first-class modern agricultural highland of innovation, industry, talent and forerunner of rural reform.

SXAU, a garden-style institution, a blend of ancient and modern, a combination of culture and nature, has two campuses covering an area of about 1905 hectares, including about 117 hectares building areas. The relics of Mingxian School are well-preserved ancient architectural complex dating back more than 280 years, which makes SXAU a vivid model of reviewing history of the modern education, agriculture development and education exchange between China and the west.

New era, New mission, New action. Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, based on fostering virtue through education and taking agriculture revitalization as its duty, SXAU strives to build itself into a “domestically first-class, internationally influential and regionally distinctive high-level research and application-oriented university”.