The history of the Department of Tropical Crops and Food Engineering can be traced back to 1960, based on the hot area of southern Yunnan, facing South and Southeast Asia, serving the national "the Belt and Road" and rural revitalization strategy for the purpose, around the rich and unique tropical plant resources, set up a voluntary and never change to carry out scientific and technological innovation, talent training and social service work.

Up to now, our department has one master's degree point in forestry, six undergraduate majors in forestry, agronomy, food science and engineering, herbal cultivation and identification, horticulture and tea science, and seven specialist majors in forestry technology, crop production, and management, food testing technology, herbal cultivation and processing technology, horticulture technology, tea cultivation and tea processing, tea art, and tea marketing, etc.

The department has 48 full-time teachers, 25 party members, 6 professors, 18 associate professors, 4 master supervisors, 1 expert of coffee industry working group of key industry of "green food brand" in Yunnan Province, 1 expert of coffee processing technology post of coffee industry technology system in Yunnan Province, 1 consultant of modern agriculture expert advisory group of highland specialties in Yunnan Province. There are 2 famous teachers in Yunnan Province and more than 20 science and technology experts in Yunnan Province.

Now it has two national platforms, such as Pu'er Comprehensive Experiment Station of National Natural Rubber Industry Technology System and AQSIQ-Coffee Quality Foundation and Industry Service Innovation Center, and three provincial research platforms, such as Yunnan Provincial University Coffee Resource Development and Utilization Engineering Research Center, Yunnan Provincial University Natural Rubber Green Production Engineering Research Center, and Southeast Asia Coffee Engineering Technology R&D Radiation Center for South Asia. In the past five years, it has undertaken more than 20 scientific research projects at the provincial level, published more than 50 papers, applied for nearly 30 patents, and spent nearly 10 million yuan on scientific research, winning one-third prize of scientific and technological progress in Yunnan Province, one-second prize of scientific and technological progress in Hainan Province, and one main push technology of agriculture in Yunnan Province in 2018.

In the past three years, it has published four "National 13th Five-Year Plan Textbooks", developed and recorded one online public course, won three excellent teaching teams in Yunnan Province, the one-second prize of educational teaching achievements in Yunnan Province, the one-second prize of teaching achievements at the university level, and one excellent Huang Danian-style teaching team at the university level.

In the past three years, 5 students have won national scholarships, 1 second prize in the "Challenge Cup" extracurricular academic science and technology competition, more than 200 projects of the Student Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Action Fund, nearly 10 projects of provincial-level and above innovation and entrepreneurship training programs, 2 bronze prizes and above in the Yunnan Province "Internet+" student innovation and entrepreneurship competition bronze award and above 2, school-level excellent summer social practice team 2 times. Students publish more than 10 academic journal papers and apply for nearly 10 patents every year. In the past three years, the average employment implementation rate is over 95%, and the rate of further education is over 50%.