-------------------------------------------------------------- Crop 1960 1969 -------------------------------------------------------------- Grain Wheat 7,008 6,817 Corn 8,826 8,137 Other 1,626 1,263 ------ ------ Total 17,460 16,217 Legumes 381 474 Technical crops (for industrial uses) Oleaginous 1,396 1,576 Sugar beets 494 445 Other 252 341 ------ ------ Total 2,142 2,362 Potatoes 722 754 Vegetables and melons 516 591 Fodder crops 2,711 3,356 Seed-producing and experimental plots 119 235 ------ ------ Total Cultivated Acreage 24,051 23,989 -------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Adapted from _Anuarul Statistic al Republicii Socialiste Romania 1970_, (Statistical Yearbook of the Socialist Republic of Romania, 1970), Bucharest, 1970, pp. 306-307. Encroachment by builders upon agricultural and, more particularly, arable land was facilitated by the government's policy, pursued until the spring of 1968, of treating land as a free good and assigning no value to it in calculating the cost of industrial and housing investment projects. Arable land was especially attractive to builders because it required no expenditure for leveling. In an attempt to prevent further waste of valuable farmland, a law for the protection and conservation of agricultural land was passed in May 1968. The law prohibited the diversion of farm acreages to nonagricultural uses, with the exception of special cases which, depending upon the nature and location of the land involved, required the approval of either the Council of State, the Council of Ministers, or the Superior Council of Agriculture (a government agency that functioned in lieu of a ministry for several years). Nonagricultural state organizations that held land that they could not cultivate were obligated to surrender it without payment to neighboring state or collective farms.