To explore cooperatives' responses to the forces shaping agricultural marketing, we need to understand their role in a market-oriented economy. Cooperatives' economic function is to integrate vertically their members into the market chain, either upstream (a purchasing co-op) or downstream (a marketing co-op). The distinguishing feature of cooperative integration is its jointness. Agents horizontally coordinate (form a club) to accomplish vertical integration (VI). Thus, to explain cooperatives' role in a market-oriented economy is simultaneously (a) to enumerate farmers' incentives to integrate vertically and (b) to identify reasons for coordinated (i.e., cooperative) rather than individual integration.