In the agricultural sector, the collective farms set up in Alentejo after the 1974–75 expropriations due to the coup proved incapable of modernizing, and their efficiency declined. According to government estimates, about 900,000 hectares (2,200,000 acres) of agricultural land were occupied between April 1974 and December 1975 in the name of land reform ("reforma agrária"); around 32% of these were ruled illegal. In January 1976, the government pledged to restore the illegally occupied lands to their owners, and in 1977, it promulgated the Land Reform Review Law. Restoration began in 1978.