[2][22][23] The university is an alma mater to many notable scientists, geneticist, agricultural engineers[24][25][26] and often regarded as the progenitor of Green Revolution in India.

[35] The university has been re-accredited with a CGPA of 3.14 on a four-point scale and has received an 'A' grade from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), valid till October 2018.

[9][37] The institute was established by Dr. Sam Higginbottom, an English-born Presbyterian missionary in 1910 as a Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension of Ewing Christian College, Allahabad.

[41] After a meeting in Benaras, Dr. Higginbottom and Mahatma Gandhi became friends and started exchanging letters on issues, such as agriculture, poverty alleviation and rural economy.

During this phase the institute was taken up by Arthur T. Mosher, and he is largely credited with major expansion of infrastructure and the introduction of famous "Jamuna Par Punar Yojna", the extension project of recruiting workers at the village level.

[49][50] In 1952, the University of Illinois signed a contract with United States Agency for International Development for assisting the institute in improving its educational programs.

[52][53][54][55] To obtain more academic freedom and to strengthen its research and extension programmes, a proposal was submitted to the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development in August 1994, that the institute be granted the status of a deemed university.

The campus houses a shopping complex, several cafeterias, restaurants, ATMs, post office, a centre of Krishi Vigyan Kendra and a branch of the State Bank of India.

The major research areas include agronomy, mechanised agriculture, food processing, silviculture, genetic engineering, pharmacology, plant pathology, applied microbiology and computational biology.

[76][77][78][79] The Allahabad Farmer is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal of the university which has been publishing research articles in basic and applied aspects of agriculture technology and sciences.

Besides, the centre facilitates entrepreneurial and soft skills training, summer internships, career counselling and other personality development programs to the students.

[103][104][105][106][107] The students are divided into four houses, Red Eagles, Blue Bulls, Yellow Tigers and Pink Panthers for inter-house games and sports tournaments.

[128] SHUATS has a widespread alumni network of agriculturists, life scientists and agricultural engineers taking over many prestigious positions across the world.

[129][130][131] Some of the prominent people associated with the university include agricultural scientists, Rajiv Khosla,[132] Pramod Ramteke,[133][134] Arthur T. Mosher[135] and Mason Vaugh,[136] independence activists, Titus Theverthundiyil[137] and Seth Achal Singh,[138] educationists and scholars, Valson Thampu[139] and John B. Chitamber,[140] sportsperson, Yash Dayal,[141] politicians, Anil Agrawal,[142] Jitendra Prasada,[143] Fateh Bahadur Singh,[144] Amarnath Pradhan,[145] and Sasmit Patra,[146] theologists and administrators, K. Reuben Mark,[147] Vishal Mangalwadi[148] and John Lawrence Goheen,[149] sociologists, Charlotte Viall Wiser[150] and William H. Wiser[150] among others.