Editing Decree 900 (section)

===Land, literacy and credit===
Credit for those receiving land was mandated by additional legislation in 1953, which also established a National Agrarian Bank (BNA). The government dispensed $3,371,185 in loans during 1953; $3,049,092 (around 90%) had been paid back by July 1954—a historically unusual success in lending.<ref>Gleijeses, ''The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz'' (1989), pp. 466–467. "In view of Guatemala's history, and of the severe economic and technical constraints faced by the government, the amount of credit provided by the CHN and the BNA in one year is remarkable. A 1965 report of the Organization of American States—not a radical group—concluded, 'The success of the agrarian credit policy was no less impressive than that of the land redistribution policy'."</ref>

Beginning in 1954, land and credit were supplemented by literacy programs—the third major plank of the reform program.<ref>Gleijeses, ''The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz'' (1989), pp. 470–471. "Literacy, land, and credit were, they stressed, intimately connected: the peasants needed to read and write in order to "present their demands [for land], transact their business with the agrarian authorities, and deal with other problems such as writing to the Agrarian Committees, asking for credit from the Agrarian Bank, buying and selling their crops, etc."</ref>