The aim of this research is to analyze corporate governance practices for monitoring mechanisms considering (a) fiscal board; (b) external audit; and (c) internal audit. We verified the how close agricultural cooperatives are in adopting best corporate governance practices indicated in the codes. As theoretical framework, we use the property rights theory and the perspective of the firm as a contract nexus, and the so called separation of ownership and management. We analyze theoretically the motivations to adopt corporate governance structures for monitoring. For this, is applied a methodology that use a questionnaire based on IBGC – Brazilian Institute of Corposrte Governance and OECD O…..- best practices codes. The level of reliability measured using the Cronbach’s Alpha is 0,77. Results suggest that there is tendency of adopting those practices which are based on cooperative law for the 28 cooperatives studied. The paper concludes..