Samaru College Of Agriculture, Zaria, Kaduna State

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The Colleges the make up the Division of Agricultural Colleges of Ahmadu Bello University dates back to 1921 when the northern Nigerian Government started a farm training centre at Maigana, at the outskirt of Zaria, in the then Zaria Province.

The waxing popularity of agriculture at that early period led to the desire to modernize traditional practices, through the incorporation of new generated researched technologies in training and to introduce the concepts of commercial agriculture. That paved the way for the Centre to be transferred from Maigana to the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) Samaru in 1928.

The Farm Training Centre started formal training in 1931 and had its first graduates in 1932 designated as Agricultural Assistants (AA). Students were drawn from within the Northern Province and sponsored by their various Native Authorities. The day-to-day running of the Centre and subsequent improvements of its infrastructures and staffing were totally the responsibility of the Northern Nigerian Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources. This Centre later metamorphosed into the present day Samaru School of Agriculture, which later became the present Samaru College of Agriculture.

The College was formally established with the primary objective of training the middle-level manpower for agricultural development in the former northern Nigeria. Later in 1951, the Livestock Services Training Centre, Mando Road, Kaduna, was established to cater for the training of livestock personnel. In 1964, the third School was established with the assistance of the Government of U.S.A. at Kabba, in Kabba Province, to cater specifically for horticulture and the needs of riverine agriculture. With the dissolution of the regional authority, consequent upon the creation of states in 1966, the Interim Common Services Agency (ICSA) transferred the Colleges to Ahmadu Bello University in 1968.

To properly cater for these Colleges, an autonomous unit called Division of Agriculture and Livestock Services Training (DALST) was established in 1971 with the assistance of the Dutch government. The fourth School was founded in 1972 at Bakura, when the need for technical staff with expertise in irrigation agronomy became obvious, as a result of the prevailing draught experienced in the Northern States. The DALST was later renamed as "Division of Agricultural Colleges" (DAC).

In 1977, the Division was gazetted as a national middle-level manpower training institute with its own Board of Governing Council and Academic Board. The Division is now under National Universities Commission (NUC) as an Inter-university Centre while its Academic programmes are being regulated by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and f unded annually by the national budget. At the moment, only three of the four colleges remain, while the college at Bakura had to face closure due to a rationalization exercise owing to insufficient funding from the Federal Government in 1994.