heat, which is the staple food of the
urban population.

The grain acreage declined in absolute and in relative terms after 1960,
when it accounted for almost three-fourths of the sown area. All other
major crop acreages, excluding that under sugar beets, increased during
the 1960-69 period (see table 8). Romanian economists attributed the
shift in the crop pattern to the government's emphasis on adapting crop
production to the economic needs of the country and to the natural
conditions of individual farms. A severe flood in the spring of 1970,
the worst in the country's history, reduced the crop area by nearly 1.25
million acres below the level of 1969.

_Table 8._ _Cultivated Acreage in Romania, by Major Crops, 1960 and
1969_ (in thousands of acres)

--------------------------------------------------------------
Crop 1960 1969
--------------------------------------------------------------
Grain
Wheat 7,008 6,817
Corn 8,826 8,137
Other 1,626 1,263
------ ------
Total 17,460 16,217
Legumes 381 474
Technical crops (for industrial uses)
Oleaginous 1,396 1,576
Sugar beets 494 445
Other 252 341
------ ------
Total 2,142 2,362
Potatoes 722 754
Vegetables and melons 516 591
Fodder crops 2,711 3,356
Seed-producing and experimental plots 119 235
------ ------
Total Cultivated Acreage 24,051 23,989
--------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Adapted from _Anuarul Statistic al Republicii Socialiste
Romania 1970_, (Statistical Yearbook of the Socialist Republic
of Romania, 1970), Bucharest, 1970, pp. 306-307.

Encroachment by builders upon agricultural and, more particularly,
arable land was facilitated by the government's po