Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA)

Law 135 of 1961 created the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA) to address the inequities of rural Colombia amid the challenges of the Cuban Revolution and the social upheaval of La Violencia. Carlos Lleras Restrepo, the leader of the Liberal Party, served as the intellectual author of the project, sought to distribute public lands, expand zones of colonization, offer credits for agricultural development, and improve rural infrastructure through road and irrigation projects. He did not, however, envision the purchase or nationalization of private property. Even with its limited scope, INCORA distributed a very small percentage of lands it intended to make available, largely because of elite political influence from the Society of Agriculturalists (SAC) and the Federación Nacional de cafeteros de Colombia (Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers, FEDECAFE). Perhaps as a result of this shortcoming, Lleras Restrepo, during his presidency (1966–1970), helped to found the Asociación Nacional de Usarios Campesinos (ANUC, 1968), a national peasants' organization that also proved ineffective in addressing problems of rural poverty or landlessness.

See alsoLleras Restrepo, Carlos; Violencia, La.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Tobón, Alonso. La tierra y la reforma agraria en Colombia. Bogotá: La Oveja Negra, 1972.

Zamosc, León. The Agrarian Question and the Peasant Movement in Colombia: Struggles of the National Peasant Association, 1967–1981. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

                                      David Sowell