Manuel Fernández Figueroa Uceda
MS, Agricultural Engineering
MS, Digital Transformation of the Agri-Food and Forestry Sector
Manuel is IIFH’s third International Fellow. While pursuing his masters in agricultural engineering, specializing in plant production, he became fascinated by precision agriculture and business management. He developed an interest in the use of technology to improve production, quality, sustainability, profitability and health in the food chain. Manuel’s thesis research at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Agrónomos y de Montes de la UCO has thus far focused on the valuation of rural real estate assets and the impact that modernization investments have in terms of equity and cash flows. He demonstrated how it increased the ability to access credit, participate in corporate integration, expropriation value and sale and purchase value.
At UC Davis, he will focus on research on canopy-level nitrogen estimation in almond orchards using drone and satellite imagery for precision fertilization and irrigation. He is exploring the challenges of environmental and economic sustainability of farms, especially in contexts of inflation, market volatility and climatic adversities, and the use of precision agriculture to address this.
Venture Capital Host
