This paper examines new agricultural cooperative organizational models from an
ownership rights perspective. We argue that new cooperative organizational models differ in the
way ownership rights are assigned to the economic agents tied contractually to the firm –
members, patrons, and investors. The paper proposes a typology of discrete organizational
models, in which the traditional cooperative structure and the investor-oriented firm are
characterized as polar forms. Five non-traditional models are described and analyzed with
implications to both private and public policy.