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Heavy exploitation of groundwater resources, with the help of government credit and infrastructural investment, has created the most important agricultural/district of Baia California Sur in the Santo Domingo Valley. Colonization of the Valley in the 1950s illustrates the interrelated problems of opening desert land for agriculture. These problems involve adjustment to the natural environment and to the sociopolitical milieu that produced the need for colonization. Attempts to ‘extend the life’ of the Valley include new water-conserving irrigation techniques and diversification of the economy, but these attempts appear threatened by demands for redistribution of land to the evergrowing number of landless poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]