The seed for the current College of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture of the Addis Ababa University was planted in 1963 with the establishment of the School of Animal Health Assistants to train manpower under the Diploma program. This school evolved to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 1979 to train Veterinary Doctors and remained the sole training institution in the country for about 3 decades. The faculty started offering graduate program in Tropical veterinary epidemiology in collaboration with the Freie  University of Berlin, Germany in 1996 which culminated in 2002.The Faculty attained a significant development in 2004/05 in that 8 MSc Programs and 1 BSc Program in Veterinary Laboratory Technology were launched. In 2009 the Faculty, again, launched 9 summer MSc programs. Another special and historical event in the history of the Faculty was the launching of 4 PhD programs (Vet Parasitology, Vet Public Health, Vet Obstetrics and Gynecology and Animal Health and Production) in 2009. A remarkable milestone in the history of the Faculty also happened in 2012/13 through the establishment of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture, stretched across two campuses at Bishoftu (Veterinary Medicine) and Fitche/Selale campus (Agriculture). The Selale Campus runs three programs, namely (1). Animal Science and Technology (2). Plant Science and Horticulture and (3). Agricultural Resources Economics. Meanwhile, two UK-based animal welfare organizations, The Donkey Sanctuary and SPINA, were established and hosted in the College.

Currently, the College particularly, the Bishoftu Campus, is organized in to 6 Departments and one center, namely 1. Biomedical Sciences 2. Clinical Studies 3. Animal Production Studies 4. Veterinary Microbiology Immunology and Veterinary Public Health 5.  Veterinary Parasitology and Pathology 6. Training, Research and Development Center (established in 2010 to serve as a training site and a research facility in which animal experimentation, production and teaching/learning demonstration are carried out) and 7. Veterinary Teaching Hospital (established in 2012).

The College is currently accomplishing three core missions. These include teaching, problem-solving research and community services.  In the Diploma training program, 1,890 animal health assistants have been graduated. Over 35 years (1979-2014), the college graduated 1,199 DVM professionals. Over 13 years (2002-2014), 349 specialists have graduated from the faculty. In the history of the college, six PhD students graduate this academic year and this is considered to be one of the remarkable achievements of the college. Most of the graduates of the college have joined different positions in Universities, Research Centers, Regional laboratories, Ministry of Agriculture, NGOs, private sectors in the country and abroad. In research, the College aspires to excel as both the students (VLT, DVM, MSc, and PhD) and academic staffs are totally engaged in animal health and production-related research undertakings under basic, applied and analytical research themes. In this line,  a number of competitive research grants have been secured from AAU thematic Research, EU-EDULINK, NARF, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ethio-Belgium Projects, VLIR-UOS South Initiative, DGDC-ITM Belgium, GALV med, Ethio-Italian projects and others which are already in the pipeline. The College promotes inter-disciplinary and problem-oriented research; thus, a number of cross-departmental, local and international collaborative research activities have been carried out in the college. Research results are usually publicized in different forms, namely peer reviewed journals, proceedings, books, book chapters, and teaching materials. One of the highest merits of the College is its enduring public services. Though not the only, the major service delivering ones are the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, the Donkey Sanctuary and SPANA. The services include treating all species of animals (over 20000-25000 patients every year), vaccination mainly against rabies, consultancy, ambulatory clinic, artificial insemination service, veterinary drug sale, harness making, animal welfare education of school children and others.