ural production
process. The planning of mechanized farm operations, the allocation of
equipment for specific purposes, and the timing and supervision of all
operations are joint responsibilities of the section chief and the
farm's chief engineer. Close cooperation and a smooth working
relationship between them is therefore needed for effective performance.

Mechanized work on farms is carried on by permanent teams composed of
agricultural mechanics and collective farm members. They take over
assigned areas in all sectors of the farm and are in charge of all
relevant operations until the crops have been stored. In slack period
the mechanization sections work outside the cooperative farms in order
to utilize more fully their manpower and equipment.

The reorganization of the agricultural mechanization enterprises was
accompanied by a change in the system of pay for mechanics and
maintenance men to provide for greater incentives. For work done on the
farms, these workers receive 80 percent of their annual salary, and the
remainder is paid at the end of the year, in whole or in part, depending
upon the degree to which the production plans of the farm on which they
work are fulfilled. Provision was also made for bonus payments in the
event of over-fulfillment of production plans. The shift in wage policy
was accompanied by a raise in the rates of pay for mechanics,
maintenance men, and personnel operating the equipment in the field on
a piecework basis. This measure increases the burden on the already
strained budgets of many collective farms.

FARM LABOR

The agricultural labor force presents a paradox of substantial
underemployment associated with widespread labor shortages, particularly
of more productive, skilled personnel; the shortages are especially
prevalent during the planting and harvesting seasons. This phenomenon is
an outgrowth primarily of a progressive qualitative deterioration of the
agricultural manpower pool, owing to a continuing transfer of
predominantly young male workers into nonagricultural occupations.
Maldistribution of the labor force and poor management of the available
manpower resources have been important contributing factors. The
outmigration from agriculture has been spurred by a wide disparity in
urban and rural incomes and by the relatively inferior living conditions
on the farms. At the beginning of the 1970s the average income of
farmworkers was only half as high as that of industri