nt
of the country), about two-thirds of which was arable. The balance was
devoted to pastures, meadows, vineyards, and orchards. During the decade
of the 1960s substantial additions to the agricultural area were made
through various land improvement measures. At the same time, however,
large acreages were diverted to industrial and residential uses,
particularly of the more valuable arable land. The net result was an
increase in the total farmland area, mainly in orchards and pastures,
and a decline in the arable acreage (see table 7).

_Table 7._ _Land Use in Romania, Selected Years, 1960-70[1]_ (in
thousands of acres)

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1960 1962 1969 1970
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Agricultural Land
Arable 24,268 24,515 24,146 24,050
Pasture 6,953 6,924 7,426 7,420
Meadow 3,427 3,447 3,506 3,499
Vineyard 768 744 857 857
Orchard 529 662 1,053 1,067
Total Agricultural Land 35,945 36,292 36,988 36,893
------ ------ ------ ------
Forest Land 15,822 15,807 15,607 15,604
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1. Agricultural land by type of use and forest area.
Source: Adapted from _Anuarul Statistic al Republicii Socialiste
Romania_, 1970 (Statistical Yearbook of the Socialist Republic
of Romania, 1970), Bucharest, 1970, pp. 246-247.

Forests occupied an area of 15,604,000 acres in 1970, the equivalent of
about 27 percent of the country's land surface. The forest acreage
declined slowly but steadily after 1961, for a total loss of almost
247,000 acres.

Slightly more than two-thirds of the more than 24 million acres of crop
area in 1969 was under grains. Technical crops for industrial uses,
consisting mainly of oilseeds and sugar beets, and fodder crops occupied
almost one-fourth of the sown area. The remainder of less than 10
percent was devoted to legumes, potatoes, vegetables, and melons and to
seed-producing and experimental plots. Half the grain acreage was
devoted to corn, which is used for food and feed by the farmers; and
more than two-fifths was under w