Under previously prevailing conditions, payments to farmworkers differed widely, 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 agricultural complexes discrimination in investment between the two types of farms is being eliminated along with other distinctions. Investment plans are to be uniformly based on the needs of the entire complex regardless of the former status of its constituent farms. Needs will be evaluated mainly on the basis of government programs for individual kinds of production, the availability of manpower, and the natural conditions of the farms and complexes.