Initially, the VEGs predominantly raised animals and plants and propagated seed to supply LPGs.
As with the LPGs, so with the VEGs, in the late 1960s, a politically motivated separation of animal husbandry from arable farming was instituted.
However, these were simultaneously amalgamated into larger units, so that their total numbers declined from 511 in 1970 to 465 in 1985, while the agricultural land under cultivation by the VEGs remained almost constant at approximately 440,000 hectares.
Compared to the LPGs, in many cases the VEGs received preferential treatment, in the form of superior machinery and more capital investment, since they functioned as so-called pillars of the preferred working class on the land.
In particular in the 1950s and 1960s, they were expected to demonstrate the superiority of the "socialist model of production", and later also to take on a progressive role, which, however, they were not always able to perform adequately.