EN
Agricultural co-operatives in France grow and work in many different areas of agricultural production. A fundamental question in various debates is: "whether it is different or similar to other companies and what is its future?". All designations: doctrinal, economic, legal, and social do not give a comprehensive answer to define the essence of this kind of companies. The author of this article presents a synthesis of different points of view about cooperatives and at the end of it a new definition of agricultural cooperation is given.