depending upon the income levels of the individual farms. Under
the new law wages for all farmworkers are to be gradually standardized
on the principle of equal wages for equal work. Work input is to be
measured on the basis of uniform labor norms differentiated according to
natural conditions. In determining the wage level, consideration will
also be given to increases in productivity, cost reduction, and the
accumulation of investment funds by the farms. Distribution of the
farm's income is to be carried out on the basis of a resolution by the
Council of Ministers, details of which were not available in early 1973.
Its main import is that the total remuneration of farmworkers, over and
above their wages, will remain dependent upon the overall results of the
individual farms. All farmworkers are entitled to a minimum wage of 80
leva per month, and members of previously independent collective farms
retain their right to advance payments against their estimated final
income shares.

Little substantive information is available on the current practice of
remunerating people working on farms. The decree that went into effect
on January 1, 1973, directed that the formation and distribution of
incomes of all agroindustrial complexes and their constituent farms be
based on a uniform system and on the principle that each farm must be
fully self-supporting. Each farm must establish a wage fund calculated
as a percentage of its total income. In the event that this fund is
inadequate to cover legitimate wage requirements, the farms may draw
upon two other obligatory funds or resort to bank credits.

INVESTMENT AND MECHANIZATION

Investment

In the 1960-71 period annual investment in agriculture increased from
381 million to 548 million leva, but it declined as a proportion of
total investment from 28 to 15 percent. A substantial portion of the
agricultural investment was used to equip new state farms established on
previously collective farmlands. Investment funds were used for the
construction of farm buildings, machinery repair stations, and
irrigation facilities and for the acquisition of farm machinery. On the
basis of cultivated acreage, state farms received more investment than
collective farms, but the disproportion was gradually reduced and become
quite small by 1970. In that year state farms had about 15 percent more
fixed assets per acre of cultivated land than the collective farms.

With the formation of agricult