The process of formation and development of agricultural cooperation in Ukraine took place in different historical epochs under difficult and contradictory conditions. Since Ukraine gained independence, more than 150 laws have been adopted on the development of agricultural activities and rural areas. Although these laws were aimed at the improvement of the standard of living of the rural population, they did not have a sufficient positive impact and did not improve the wellness and wellfare of the rural residents across the country. All this is explained by the fact that the situation in this sector of the economy remains rather complicated and does not have a proper role in the state as a whole. Moreover, with the transition of the economy to a market basis, agricultural sector with its seasonal production and slowed-down capital turnover turned out to be in worse conditions than in other sectors of the economy [1]. At the same time, the international practice of the cooperative movement shows a significant impact on the wellness and welfare of the rural residents [2, 3]. Ensuring stable development, increasing efficiency and state support for agricultural cooperation in the context of the systemic crisis of the agro-industrial complex and the emergence of a market economy are the main aspects of the economic growth of the country’s agricultural sector and the further sustainable development of the rural areas in Ukraine. Nowadays the country is going through a period of the agrarian reform and entry into global integration, which has accumulated civilized experience in agricultural production. The organizational and economic mechanism of agricultural cooperation is a multifaceted category, which includes a wide range of relations, forms and methods of regulation and management of the national economy. This mechanism reflects the internal processes of functioning of agribusiness and cooperation, the interaction between productive forces and production relations. With the help of interrelated economic levers and methods, it has an effective impact on the processes of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of products. The organizational and economic mechanism of agricultural cooperation can successfully perform a regulatory role at all stages of the reproduction of the social product only if its basic links are improved. One of the most promising ways of the development of Ukraine is the improvement of the system of agricultural cooperation, which will allow to organize on cooperative principles the joint activity of small forms of management and the population in such a way that the participants of this system can jointly solve the existing problems of business and rural areas, help meet the urgent social and economic needs, as well as to be a link between the main measures of the state impact on social development of the rural areas and directly by the local residents of these territories. Functions inherent in all agricultural cooperatives, assume responsibilities, activities, purpose and role. They are fundamental in establishing interrelations between the objects that can join them into one system. The assignment of a group of cooperatives to a particular subsystem is carried out on the basis of the greatest specific gravity in the volume of work performed or the services of a particular function. The key to the viability of the agricultural cooperation system is the interaction of infrastructure organizations that support the operation of this system, but are not cooperatives, and cooperatives of service subsystems. The essence of cooperation allows its participants to overcome the problems of the lack of financial and human resources, as well as the lack or unsatisfactory condition of the material and technical base and the development of the infrastructure of rural areas through joint efforts to attract resources, interact with authorities of different levels and solve not only the problems of organizing business activities, but also social problems of the rural areas. Agricultural cooperation is a mechanism for uniting the interests of the rural residents and implementing social responsibility within the framework of public-private partnership.