National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike started on 1st January, 1923 on a 20 hectare land, as a British colonial Provincial Experimental farm, under the Colonial Nigeria Department of Agriculture with headquarters at Moor Plantation Ibadan. Following Nigerian regionalization of Government Departments in 1954, it came under the Eastern Region Ministry of Agriculture, supervised by the Director of Agriculture at Enugu. In 1955, the School of Agriculture was established at the same location. The Provincial Experimental Farm or Research Station became known as the Eastern Nigeria Agricultural Research Station in 1956. Both the research station and the school were amalgamated in 1965 and called Agricultural Research and Training Station (ARTS), Umudike. On 1st April, 1972 the then Federal Military government of Nigeria took over this station and renamed it Federal Agricultural Research and Training Station (FARTS), Umudike.
The Station was upgraded to a commodity Research Institute in 1975 by Agricultural Research Institutes Decree 35, 1973 and Research Institutes (Establishment etc) Order 1975, and renamed National Root Crops Research Institute. The Institute came under the aegis of National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) by Decree No. 5 of January 1977. In 1980, it was transferred to the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology. From 1986, the Institute came under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMANR). In 1992, the Institute’s Federal College of Agriculture was directed to relocate to Ishiagu, Ebonyi State, and its premises were taken over by Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. In 2006, the Institute and its Federal College of Agriculture came under the supervision of the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), Abuja; an agency under the FMANR.