A farmer’s cooperative is something that is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service quite commonly and is also known as a farmers’ co-op or an agricultural cooperative. The idea here is that a group of farmers will come together, pool all of their resources into a certain area or activity. They will then work for the better good of the farm at large.
Collective farms form communities with shared agriculture. They are a community that can form its own little local government of sorts. A farmer’s cooperative could include everything from the sharing of the land, to the buying fo supplies in bulk, to the way that they handle financing opportunities and such for the growth of the farm location. The Internal Revenue Service treats the farmer’s cooperative as an entity in and of itself. While the farms will each have their own profit and loss, the cooperative will be the grouping of all of that work and labor.
A farmers’ co-op or agricultural cooperative will need to apply using the online Non-Profit Tax ID Application and select “Other Non-Profit Organization” from the drop down menu.