Instituto Nacional de Colonización

This entity depended from the Ministry of Agriculture and it sought to alleviate the effects of the devastation caused by the three years of civil war.

By 1971 the word "Colonization" had stopped being politically correct and the name of the entity was changed to Instituto Nacional de Reforma y Desarrollo Agrario (IRYDA).

This goal was very effective for the propaganda purposes of the new regime and triumphalistic claims were made that the colonization measures would increase self-sufficiency.

But often irrigation was opposed to the traditional and sustainable methods of dryland farming that were ecologically more in tune with locally available resources in fragile environments.

Although the plans of the IRYDA were implemented with the avowed goal of a "better management of natural resources of the country" (Spanish: "mejor aprovechamiento y conservación de los recursos naturales en aguas y tierras"),[2] the agricultural policies implemented were sometimes not mindful of the environment, leading to salinization of the terrain and to soil erosion in some areas.