rcent. This ratio is reported to have prevailed
throughout the 1950-70 period, even though the government has
consistently sought to raise the contribution of the livestock sector to
total output. An increase in the proportion of livestock products to
40.6 percent in 1970, reported by another source, was attributable
mainly to the damage sustained by crops from the spring flood in that
year.

Total gross agricultural output was unofficially reported to have
reached 72.4 billion lei in 1969 and to have fallen to 68.7 billion lei
in 1970 as a result of disastrous spring floods. The 1969 output volume,
equal to that of 1967, represented the highest level attained through
1970. According to official index data, farm output in 1967 and in 1969
was 31 percent larger than it had been in 1960; the 1970 output was only
24 percent larger. These figures are equivalent to annual growth rates
of 3.9 percent for the 1960-67 period and 2.2 percent for the years 1969
through 1970.

Net farm output increased much more slowly because the cost of material
outlays per unit of output was steadily rising. In the 1963-68 period
the increase in material costs amounted to 33 percent.

The growth of farm output during the 1960s was well below the planned
levels of 70 to 80 percent for the years 1960 through 1965 and 26 to 32
percent for the 1966-70 period. Instead of more than doubling, output
increased by barely one-fourth. Unfavorable weather conditions during
some of the years were only partly responsible for the nonfulfillment of
the agricultural output plans. Other major factors included the
government's failure to provide the planned volume of inputs and an
apathetic attitude on the part of farmers owing to inadequate
incentives.

The shortfall in fertilizer deliveries during the 1966-70 period alone
amounted to 1.3 million tons of nutrients, or one-third of the planned
tonnage. For the decade as a whole, the shortfall approached 2 million
tons. Deliveries of tractors and farm machinery also lagged behind
schedule. Although an area of almost 2 million acres was to be irrigated
by 1965 and, under revised plans, an acreage of from 1.6 million to 1.7
million acres by 1970, only 550,000 acres had been actually irrigated by
1965 and 1.45 million acres by 1969. A careful and sympathetic Western
student of Romanian economy concluded that the production targets for
1965 could not have been achieved even if all the planned inputs had
been prov