It is my pleasure to welcome you to the website of the Faculty of Agriculture, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile–Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. The Faculty of Agriculture is one of the first five faculties with which the University started with, in 1962. Prior to 1981, the Faculty offered a unified 4-year degree programme in General Agriculture leading to the award of B.Sc. (Agriculture) degree.

However starting from the 1981/82 academic session, the Faculty started the 5-year undergraduate degree progammes of B. Agric. (Agric Economics), B. Agric. (Agric Extension & Rural Sociology), B. Agric. (Animal Science),  B. Agric. (Plant Science) and B. Agric. (Soil Science), representing the   subject matter areas of the five Departments in the Faculty of Agriculture.  The various programmes have carefully designed to enable our graduates function effectively in the labour market or develop as self-sustaining entrepreneurs in agricultural production and agro-allied enterprises. The Faculty of agriculture also had a B.Sc. (Home Economics) programme which had specialized options in Foods & Nutrition, Resource Management and extension Child Development and Family Relations as spell as Textiles and Clothing, Housing and Design.
         
The different programmes have in response to the dynamics of change in the international agricultural scene, and the evolving social needs of Nigeria, been redesigned and indeed our various departments have metamorphosed in the 2006/2007 academic session.  They now are as follows:

These Departments have appropriate complement of subject matter staff specialists for the various programmes and the staff specialists are also involved in research and development in diverse areas of agriculture.  We also have a farmer outreach programme in some villages in Ife East Local Government and Ede North Local Government Areas.

Our Faculty publishes a journal, the Ife Journal of Agriculture. The Journal was founded in 1979 to serve as a medium for publishing primary scientific research papers in any field of agriculture; but also publishes review articles, theoretical papers concerned with agricultural development in the tropical world and book reviews.

Apart from our teaching and research laboratories we also have a 1,400 hectares  of Teaching and Research Farm and the essential electronic library (TEAL). The latter has provision for a complement of hundreds of on-line journals/CD-ROMs in various agricultural specializations which serve as an invaluable resource for research for our staff and students (especially postgraduate students.

Each Department has a postgraduate programme for the following postgraduate degrees as follows: M. Sc., M. Phil. and Ph.D. degrees.

The University Teaching and Research farm consists of approximately 1,400 hectares and is eight kilometers north of the Agriculture buildings. It comprises the Farm Center and areas for the teaching and research activities of the Departments of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Animal Science, Crop Science, Soil Science, and Family, Nutrition and Consumer Sciences. In the farm Centre is located a farm offices, Feed depot, the machinery repair Shop, processing units for the preparation of various farm products for sale and storage, and the Field laboratories and Farm classroom. Thus, the farm center serves as an effective nerve center of all the farm activities.

The Animal Science faculties consists of Beef Cattle, Sheep, Goat, Swine, Poultry and Rabbit unit. The beef Unit has two barns, a 2.5 hectares holding area and 40 hectares of improved pastures divided into fenced paddocks. The Cattle-Mostly Ndama and White Fulani- are used for teaching and for experiments in dry season feeding, rumen physiology and mineral requirements for cattle. The former Sheep and Goat has been expanded and developed to allow for separation of sheep from goats.

The Department of Plant Science maintains 30 hectares of land for teaching and research purpose as follows: 10 hectares for oil palm, 6 hectares for Cocoa, 6 hectares areable crops, 2 hectares for citrus, 2 hectares for plantain and banana, 1 hectares for coconut, and 3 hectares for coffee, cashew and rubber. Research in the Department has been focused mainly on food crop and vegetable production especially cassava, yams, cowpea, tomatoes and maize.

The 10 hectares facilities of the Department of Soil Science consists of experimental plots used mostly for long-term studies concerned with soil facilities, macro and micro nutrient levels and continuous cultivation, soil acidity and liming studies, Soil management tillage and erosion. Research on soil microbiology-especially legume nodulation-and soil chemistry are also emphasized. The interaction between soul genesis and classification specialists and the Regional Center for Aerospace Survey make possible important work on soil mapping and land use capability.

The Department of Agricultural Economics operates 6 hectares for the generation of farm management data for teaching and extension purposes. Emphasis is on the economics and technology for three levels of technology-traditional, intermediate (Partly traditional and partly modern and advanced) -in respect of input utilization and efficiency in maize, cassava, leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes, melon, fisheries and snails. Facilities available include gari processing machines, fishery equipment as well as tractors and implement obtained from the farm center.

The Department of Agricultural Extension and rural Development runs a demonstration farm of three hectares on the Teaching and Research Farm for the purpose of exposing research of the other departments to practicing farmers, and for teaching students how to plan a demonstration farm. Emphasis is on areable crops, cassava, soybeans, maize tomatoes, Okra and leafy vegetables with the aim of determining the effect of and rate of application of fertilizers to these crops.

The faculty of Agriculture Laboratories provides facilities for teaching and research. The teaching aspects include demonstration, instruction and practice on the use of a large assortment of scientific instrument in various departments, both for regularly scheduled laboratory exercises and special student projects. of major significance are the laboratory the facilities for the analysis of soil samples, plant and animal products of field experiment as well as those that might come on request from sources outside the University. The Home Economics programme has now become to a full-fledged Department of Family Nutrition and Consumer Sciences. The programme currently operates food preparation laboratories and a clothing construction laboratory.

It is therefore my pleasure to invite you to explore our site for your benefit and information. Please feel free to contact me or any of the Heads of Departments on specific issues about our programmes, admission requirements, research, workshops, seminars and other things of academic interest.