This article offers a historical perspective on the evolutions in the raison d’être of French agricultural cooperatives. The authors show that these cooperatives have modified their missions and essential services over time according to the expectations and challenges of their socioeconomic environment. The article also discusses the main ruptures in the conception of this raison d’être, which have punctuated the development of the French agricultural cooperative and led to today’s tensions and reassessments. By showing how the work of defining this raison d’être is organized, this article sheds new light on the emergence, with the COVID-19 epidemic, of new challenges to the agricultural and food industries that are once again calling into question agricultural cooperatives’ services and fundamental missions.