These were not "state-owned" farms (although a few of these did exist) - land, except as mentioned above, remained legally in private ownership and the LPG, although often dominated by communist party cadres, was a distinct legal entity operating independently as far as was feasible within the constraints of a planned economy. However, from the early 1960s, pressure mounted on remaining independent farmers to join the LPGs and for existing LPGs to merge in more fully collectivised forms. This process, and a drive to increased industrialisation, led in the 1970s to the separation of crop and animal production and the merging of each across villages to form much larger cooperative units in which, for example, one LPG for crop production with perhaps 3,000 ha (7,400 acres) of land would supply feed to two LPGs working in animal production.