ABSTRACT
A Spring 1996 "chicken war" between Russia and America illuminates one of the most acute problems facing Russian agriculture, the survival of large mechanized farms. Poultry farms in Russia are typical exurban enterprises. They are especially numerous and technologically advanced in the vicinities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, where 13% of all of Russia's farm birds were held as well as 14% of all the chicken eggs produced in the late 1980s. The farm Russko-Vysotsky has only 900 hectares of land, so it used to produce only flourmeal, a small portion of the 200 tons of feed required daily for 40-gram broilers to gain up to 1800 grams weight in 40 days. The situation of egg-producing farms is somewhat better. They require feed of lower quality which is, therefore, cheaper. They are also less vulner. Many large poultry farms face one more problem.
