Over the course of more than 120 years, Henan Agricultural University has traversed a journey marked by hardships and perseverance, witnessing the history of higher education and agricultural education in modern Henan. Originating from the establishment of Henan University Hall in 1902, it transformed into Henan Public Agricultural Specialized School in 1912, merged with Zhongzhou University and Henan Public Law and Politics Specialized School in 1927 to become the National Fifth Sun Yat-sen University. In 1952, during a nationwide restructuring of academic departments, it gained independent status and was renamed Henan Agricultural College, later becoming Henan Agricultural University in 1984. In 2009, it became the first provincially-owned agricultural university jointly constructed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the local provincial government. In 2012, it became a university jointly built by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration and the provincial government. In 2013, the university led the establishment of Henan Grain Crops Collaborative Innovation Center, which was selected for the first batch of the 2011 Program at the national level. In 2020, it was chosen as a key university in Henan's characteristic backbone construction, and in 2021, it became part of Henan's Double First-Class construction project.

The university encompasses campuses in Zhengzhou Wenhualu, Longzihu, and Xuchang, spanning an area of 2.6483 million square meters. With interconnected campuses and a comprehensive information network environment, it houses ten major academic disciplines: agriculture, engineering, science, economics, management, law, liberal arts, medicine, education, and arts. The university boasts one national key discipline, 19 provincial and ministerial key disciplines, and 9 postdoctoral research stations. It offers 9 doctoral degree authorization primary disciplines, 2 doctoral degree professional categories, 18 master's degree authorization primary disciplines, 17 master's degree professional categories, and 88 undergraduate majors. The university has a diverse student body of 33,993 and a faculty of 2,532, including 979 high-level professionals with titles like professor and associate professor, and 1,439 with doctoral degrees. It also has two academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a total of 123 talents at various levels.

Henan Agricultural University has actively implemented the 281 platform construction plan, establishing two provincial laboratories - Shen Nong Seed Industry Laboratory and Longhu Modern Immunology Laboratory. It has eight national and international research platforms, 104 research platforms at the provincial and ministerial levels, and has undertaken 651 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation and over 2,650 research projects at the provincial and ministerial levels. Since 2020, the university's research funding has consecutively surpassed 1.9 billion, 2.4 billion, and 3.7 billion yuan, resulting in significant scientific achievements, including the world's first high-quality physical map of the black rye genome and the first local chicken genome liquid-phase chip.

Emphasizing discipline construction, the university has implemented the 241 discipline construction action. Disciplines such as crop science and veterinary medicine have been included in the provincial Double First-Class construction project. Currently, the university has four advantageous and distinctive discipline groups – crop science, veterinary medicine, forestry, and agricultural engineering. In 2022, the university and three disciplines achieved outstanding ratings in the evaluation of Henan's characteristic backbone universities and disciplines. Three disciplines were included in the Ministry of Education's priority development discipline list. Since 2022, the university has added four disciplines to the top 1% globally in the Essential Science Indicators (ESI), accumulating a total of seven. (The data mentioned is accurate up to November 2023)