lized sector the decline in milk yield had begun
in 1968 and reached serious proportions in 1972; the egg yield remained
stable through 1970 (data for later years were not available in 1973).
In the private sector the milk yield continued to rise at least until
1970; the egg yield remained stable through 1969 and rose in 1970. In
the spring of 1973 several agricultural officials, including a deputy
minister of agriculture, were reprimanded by the Council of Ministers
Bureau for permitting the decline in yields of milk and eggs.

A study of milk production during the 1965-67 period found that farms
having milk yields of 2,110 to 2,640 quarts per cow sustained an annual
loss of 56 leva for each animal, whereas farms with yields of 3,170 to
4,287 quarts earned a net income of 111 leva per cow. The reported
national average milk yield per cow therefore indicates that most farms
produced milk at a loss.

The officially reported meat output increased by 74 percent in the
1960-68 period but declined by 11 percent in the next two years. By far
the largest increase in production to 1968--2.9 times--was reported for
beef and veal, while production of poultry meat and of sheep, and goat
meat almost doubled (see table 18). The decline in output after 1968
affected all types of meat except for poultry and rabbits. For the
entire period of 1960 through 1970, meat output rose by 55 percent,
including production increases of 150 percent for beef and veal, 160
percent for poultry, and 82 percent for sheep and goat meat. Pork
production, however, had risen by only 10 percent, and the output of
rabbit meat declined by about one-third. The reported increase in meat
production cannot be correlated with available data on changes in the
size of livestock herds. An improvement in the supply of all types of
meat other than beef and veal took place in 1971.

Production of milk and eggs also increased substantially during the
1960-71 period (see table 19). Nevertheless, domestic market supplies of
livestock products remained chronically and seriously short of demand,
in part because of the magnitude of exports. Exports of agricultural raw
materials and processed foods exceeded 1 billion leva in 1970; they had
increased 2.7 times during the decade and were equivalent to 44 percent
of agriculture's contribution to the national income. Exports of food
products alone had increased more than 3.5 times during the decade to a
total of 732 million leva