Federal College of Agriculture, Ishiagu formerly known as School of Agriculture was originally established at Umudike near Umuahia (about a hundred kilometres from its present site) in 1955 by the then Eastern Nigeria Government. At this location the College occupied 52 hectares of land.
In 1964, it was amalgamated with the Agricultural Research and Training Station, (ARTS) Umudike . The school was financed by the former Eastern Nigeria Government until the outbreak of the Nigeria/Biafra civil war of 1967. In 1972, the institution assumed federal status as the Federal Agricultural Research and Training Station (FARTS).

On 1st April 1976, FARTS was renamed National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) Umudike with the school as the training wing. In 1989, the school received initial accreditation by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE).

Following the accreditation, the school became known as Federal College of Agriculture Umudike.
The college was granted administrative autonomy by the Federal Government in 1991 and became funded directly and supervised by the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology with a Governing Board.

The mission of Federal College of Agriculture is to promote the advancement of agricultural training, production and research in Nigeria. The College has the national mandate to develop and organize high quality and practically oriented training with dynamic curricula to produce self reliant technicians and technologists at National Diploma and Higher National Diploma levels.

In July 1993, The College was relocated through a Ministerial Order to Ishiagu following the establishment of a Federal University on its campus in 1992. The college moved to its new permanent site in October, 1995 as the Federal College of Agriculture, Ishiagu.