Efectos de la política de colonización en el regadío de Extremadura: balance y perspectiva

The implementation of the guidelines derived from the colonisation policy of 1939– 1977 has in Extremadura one of the most privileged regions both taking into account the amount of surface being transformed and its parallel organisation of the agricultural space, the number of families that have settled down, the creation of new urban centres and the number of houses built, both in groups and scattered. A great work which aimed at the creation of true agricultural enterprises, with a clear orientation to farming, able to get a level of productivity that could make it possible to keep the family manpower and agricultural workers in the land, but which has not succeeded, though the impact produced has positive aspects. The new agricultural morphology has neither created a strong agriculture and food industry nor developed the services, the productive sector which generates the most employment and income availability. The investments carried out in order to improve the exploitation of natural resources and provoke the region’s socioeconomic explosion have not been effective enough. That is the reason why the inherited situation forces the Autonomous Administration to intervene so that Extremadura’s existing potential, linked to the process of transformation and colonisation, can be selectively enlarged as regards irrigation surface, more integrated with the territory and respectful and rational as for the environment. A more practical and convenient way to improve the final and long awaited socioeconomic development of the region.