Non-profi t, cons umer, and government advocates are working to expa nd access to local ly-produced
foods as a way of addressing majo r socia l and ecologic al issues. Some activists, however, suggest that
farms “ scaling -up” production and distr ibution may lose si ght of the movement’ s aims by circumventing
a direct exchange between growin g and consumer and by deliveri ng “ local” shares long distan ces. I argue
that in order to answer wh ether scaling -up is mi sguided, we fi rst have to understan d how farms come to
scale differently. I describe the vari ed practices that three comm unit y supp orted agr iculture (CSA) farms
in the Midwest perform in order to give their products ma rket valu e as embedde d in a spec ifi c socioecolog ical context. I focus on three key moments of CSA that advocates are concer ned about in
scaling -up: 1) the empl oym ent of dif ferent kinds of lab or; 2) operating withi n the seasons ; 3) the
management of sharer exp ectations abou t produce quan tity and quality. As what I call comm odity
practice, farm decisions abo ut these factors produce dif ferently scaled local food comm oditi es. These
different practices are not neces sarily incongr uent wit h the aims of the moveme nt. M y main point in this
approach is to advance an awareness of hybridit y in local food insti tutions. As CSAs and other institu tions
like foo d hubs grow and evolve, a look at comm odity practices can shed light on and conf ound some of
the appa rent contradiction s in scal ing-up .