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This paper investigates the genesis, organizational design characteristics and the early growth stages of farmer-owned cooperatives in the Brazilian agricultural frontier, from a life cycle approach. Faced with market failures and missing services, farmers in the agricultural frontier overcame collective action challenges and formed 43 cooperatives since the 1990s. Based on the analysis of the survey of 30 cooperatives already formed and in operation, and in-depth, personal interviews with farmers leading the formation of 10 new cooperatives, the paper contributes to the development of a micro-analytic life cycle theory of cooperatives.