Intensification of Agriculture, greater output of farm produce through the more effective utilisation of tilled land thanks to the employment of new techniques, technology and more advanced forms of organising labour and production. Today, intensification is becoming the main form of expanded reproduction in agriculture. Today, it is usually more advisable to use farm machinery, fertilisers and other resources produced on an extended scale to increase the productivity of already utilised land. This increases the return of earlier and new resources invested in land, and makes it necessary and economically expedient to primarily use intensive forms of the development of agriculture rather than extensive forms like cultivating new land while not improving the technological base. Furthermore, today there are far more possibilities for the intensive development of agricultural production. Intensification presupposes greater capital investment in agriculture. In 1959-65, capital investment in farm production accounted for 20 per cent of the total for the USSR, in 1966-70 for 23 per cent, in 1971-75 for 26 per cent, and in 1976-80 for more than 27 per cent. The CPSU regards the systematic increase in capital investment in agriculture as the fundamental issue of agrarian policy. It therefore attaches exceptional importance to ensuring high returns on the new investments, as well as to more fully utilising the latest achievements in science and technology, advanced production methods and organisation, and to using improved machines and equipment, etc. Intensification increases output per each unit of resources employed thanks to their more intensive functioning and active use of all factors of production. It presupposes the continuous improvement of techniques, technology and management methods. The extensive development of agriculture retains its importance as well. Almost all farms have land reserves. Yet the extensive path does not take a "pure form”, since the development of new land through irrigation, drainage, etc. involves the employment of new machinery and advanced production methods and the use of the achievements of scientific and technical progress. The intensification of agriculture is expressed in the total value of production assets and current outlays, as well as in output per unit of land area. Both indices are closely connected. The value of assets and expenditure per hectare of land reveals the material and technical base and potential of intensification. Output per hectare indicates how these opportunities are realised. Farm production is intensified in different ways, above all through increasing technical equipment, asset-worker and power-worker ratio, comprehensive mechanisation of crop farming and livestock raising, the introduction of industrial technologies and the transfer of production to industrial lines. Intensive production presupposes the comprehensive use of chemicals, the broad and rational use of mineral and organic fertilisers in combination with a scientifically grounded farming system and effective measures of pest and plant disease control. Intensification also involves better plant selection and livestock-raising, the development and introduction of advanced varieties and hybrids, and highly productive animal breeds adapted to particular soil and climatic conditions. Of considerable importance in intensifying agriculture is changing the crop structure and replacing less productive cultures by more productive, as well as organising specialised zones of production. One way of increasing land quality, and consequently of intensification, is land improvement. Investing more in irrigation and drainage, lime treatment of acid soils, and rational management of meadows and pastures—all ensure a good basis for high and stable yields. Irrigation improves the plants’ water regime and stimulates the key physiological processes, thus considerably increasing productivity per hectare of ploughland. Field protecting forest belts control draughts and arid winds, and wind and water erosion, thus helping to increase soil fertility. An important role in 171 intensifying agricultural production, particularly crop farming, is played by proper location and concentration on the basis of inter-farm cooperation and agro-industrial integration. The further development of the productive forces today requires a fundamentally new approach to the organisation of agricultural production, its deeper specialisation and the pooling of efforts by farms in order to more extensively use the achievements of scientific and technical progress. Science and practical experience confirm that this is a sure way of rationally using land, manpower, machinery and other factors of intensification, and of accelerating on this basis the growth of production and increasing the efficiency of agricultural production. Intensification and increasing the efficiency of agricultural production are now a major feature of the CPSU agrarian policy. Its main components are the creation of stable economic conditions to ensure expanded reproduction on collective and state farms, consistent intensification, the introduction of the achievements of scientific and technical progress, the consolidation of the material and technical base, comprehensive mechanisation and chemicalisation, extensive land improvement, observance of the Leninist principle of material incentives, the proper combination of public, collective, and personal interests, and the implementation of a set of social measures to considerably improve rural living standards.