The participation of small scale farms in agro-food value chains through the mechanism of cooperation were considered in the article. The purpose of the study is to disclose the economic mechanism that promotes the redistribution of value added, formed in agro-food value chains, in favor of agricultural producers. The conducted researches allowed to prove the expediency of participation in agricultural cooperation, to reveal the economic mechanism of the redistribution of value added, formed in agro-food value chains, to reveal the dynamics of the number of agricultural consumer cooperatives and the shortcomings of proposed recommendations on the development of programs for the development of agricultural co-operation, and to suggest the directions for its improvement. On the base of example of agricultural credit cooperatives shows a mechanism for solving problems that limit the development of cooperation, in particular, related to legal dualism in the organization of control and supervision of their activities.