gh concentration and specialization of agriculture on an industrial
basis in accord with the requirements of the current scientific and
technical revolution and with the achieved level of maturity of the
country's economy. The reorganization is intended to increase output,
improve quality, reduce costs, and increase the exportable surplus. It
is also expected to bring about social improvement in the countryside by
raising the farmworkers' incomes and helping to reduce the differences
between town and country. Government officials intend to complete the
transition to the new organizational structure by 1980.

The original aim of the new farm policy in the late 1960s was to create
large-scale regional organizations to handle all aspects of the
production, processing, and distribution of foods and the supply of
machinery, fertilizers, and other farm needs through vertical
integration of the consolidated farm organizations with industrial and
distribution enterprises. This aspect of farm policy is to be realized
gradually over a period of years. In the meantime vertical integration
will be based predominantly on contractual relations.

A first step in vertical integration of agriculture and the food
industry was taken in December 1972 with the establishment of an
agroindustrial trust called Bulgarian Sugar. Seven agroindustrial
complexes were to be created around an equal number of sugar mills
grouped in the newly formed trust. The complexes were to average 100,000
acres in size, one-fourth of which would be used each year for the
production of sugar beets. The first such complex was established in
Ruse in January 1973. The crop rotation is to include wheat, corn, and
fodder crops which, together with by-products from the sugar production,
are to provide the feed base for livestock keeping. All farmlands in the
new organization are to become state property, and farmworkers are to
acquire the status of industrial workers subject to the provisions of
the Labor Code.

Two basic types of agroindustrial complexes are provided for by the
regulations. The first type is a membership organization in which the
constituent farms retain their juridical identity and a certain measure
of economic independence. The second type is a centralized organization
in which the constituent farms are merged and lose their separate
identities. A further distinction is made depending upon the nature of
the constituent farms and other economic organ