regulations on private farm property was not
apparent from the official statistics for 1968 and 1969.

Shortly after the adoption of the conservation law, the deputy chairman
of the State Committee for Construction, Architecture, and
Systematization published an article in which he stated that mere
administrative regulations by the committee and the Superior Council of
Agriculture could not ensure the proper use of land, particularly on the
collective farms. He called for the development of appropriate economic
levers based on an adaptation of "the systems that limit land waste in
some capitalistic markets." This official's concern about the efficacy
of the new legislation was well based. By 1970 the arable acreage had
declined by 158,000 acres, at an average annual rate more than half
again as large as the annual losses during the 1962-68 period.

ORGANIZATION

Collective and state farms are the principal types of farm organization
(see table 9). Substantial areas of state agricultural land are also
operated as subsidiary farms by various industrial and other economic
organizations. Small private farms survive mainly in the mountainous
regions where collectivization is impractical. In 1970 the state owned
30 percent of the farmland, about half of which was cultivated by state
farms. Almost 61 percent of the land belonged to collective farms,
including 6.6 percent in plots for the personal use of their members.
The collective farm population consisted of almost 3.5 million families,
including more than 10 million collective members. About 9 percent of
the farmland was in the possession of private farmers.

_Table 9. Agricultural Land in Romania, by Type of Ownership, 1969_ (in
thousands of acres)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arable Pasture Meadow Vineyard Orchard Total
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
State agricultural
units 4,959 5,545 264 148 173 11,089
(State farms) (4,129) (688) (170) (133) (148) (5,218)
Collective farms 18,075 1,315 1,712 682 692 22,476
(Private plots) (1,969) (20) (54) (262) (121) (2,426)
Private farms 1,112 566 1,530 27 188 3,423
------ ----- ----- --- ----- ------
Total