Final answer:
Agricultural cooperatives primarily help farmers by allowing them to cooperate in marketing their products, form economic coalitions, and sometimes enter into joint ventures.
Step-by-step explanation:
Agricultural cooperatives play a critical role in supporting farmers by collectively carrying out a number of functions. Notably, these cooperatives allow farmers to cooperate in marketing their products. This is exemplified through pooled sales, joint advertising, and bargaining for better prices, which are all means by which cooperatives empower their members. Additionally, these cooperatives may provide farmers with the opportunity to form economic coalitions with farmers in other countries, fostering international trade and benefiting from economies of scale. Lastly, there's room for cooperatives to engage in joint ventures with public manufacturing companies, though this is not as common a function as marketing and forming coalitions.
In the context of U.S. agriculture, cooperatives can help individual farmers and agricultural companies maintain stability and profitability in a market where agribusiness has significant control and federal programs provide necessary assistance.