Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU) is in the main urban area of Wuhan, Hubei province. It was founded in 1898 as the Hubei Farming School, became Huazhong Agricultural College in 1952 and took its present name in 1985. HZAU says it has 17 colleges and departments and over 34,000 full-time students, and it became a national “double first-class” construction university in 2017.
Crop science and plant protection are taught in the College of Plant Science & Technology, formed in 2002 by merging the departments of agriculture and plant protection; other colleges cover horticulture and forestry, animal science, veterinary medicine, resources and environment, and fisheries. HZAU hosts the National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement and the National Key Laboratory of Agro-microbiology, and lists research work on hybrid rapeseed, green rice, breeding pigs, animal vaccines, citrus and test-tube potatoes. It reports agreements with 168 universities and research institutions, including the University of California, Davis and Wageningen University & Research, and runs the Joint Institute of Huazhong Agricultural University and Lincoln University.