The Standing Committee agreed to link several villages in a single co-operative of 500 to 1000 families, with the goal of later forming commune-sized units twice that size. Communal kitchens were also introduced so that all members of a commune ate together rather than in their individual homes. Foraging or hunting for additional food was prohibited, regarded as individualistic behaviour. From the summer of 1976, the government ordered that children over the age of seven would live not with their parents but communally with Khmer Rouge instructors. The co-operatives produced less food than the government believed, in part due to a lack of motivation among laborers and the diversion of the strongest workers to irrigation projects. Fearing criticism, many party cadres falsely claimed that they had met the government's food production quota. The government became aware of this, and by the end of 1976 Pol Pot acknowledged food shortages in three quarters of the country.