Excerpts from the report: The organization of the poultry industry has changed considerably in the past 20 years. A major development is the increasing use of contracts to coordinate the various activities involved in production and marketing of poultry products. Latest estimates are that probably 95 percent of the chicken broilers, 50 to 60 percent of the turkeys, and 30 to 35 percent of the eggs are produced under some type of contractual arrangement between the grower and other firms associated with the industry. The main objective of the study reported here was to estimate returns to growers under different types of contracts with various combinations of prices and other factors that influence grower returns. Another objective was to compare the returns to contract growers with returns to independent growers.