The average agroindustrial complex is composed of five or six farms having a cultivated area variously reported as 59,000 to 68,000 acres and a permanent work force of about 6,500 people. Although the large size of the complexes has been questioned by several economists on grounds of efficiency, Zhivkov was reported to have suggested the possibility of eventually merging the existing complexes into only twenty-eight districtwide units. Types and Aims The announced purpose of the reorganization is to increase productivity through 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.