Fernando Barrera Arenas is an Agricultural Engineer from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Master in Agricultural Sciences and Rural Economy from the Universidad Católica de Louvain (Belgium). He was Head of the Extension Department of the Institute for Agricultural Development (INDAP) and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Latin American Network of Rural Extension Services RELASER. He has been teaching Rural Extension at the Faculty of Agronomy of the University of Chile and has published papers on the same subject.
He is currently an Extension Specialist at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, forming part of the team of the IICA Representation in Chile, collaborating in the preparation, design, development and monitoring of cooperation projects for the development of national innovation systems in the field of agricultural extension. He has developed specific technical cooperation actions in Chile, Guatemala, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.