It is generally assumed that socially embedded market relationships translate to less
exploitation of farmers, since consumers are supposed to be more willing to share risk
and to commit for the long term (or landlords are willing to cut CSA farmers a break, as
was mentioned earlier), but these data show that social embeddedness also cuts in the
opposite direction. A different form of surplus extraction replaces the surplus extraction
that occurs from unfair market exchanges in conventional markets. Unfair exchanges can
be self-imposed because of a sense of obligation to CSA members, to whom farmers
often feel close. In other words, greater social embeddedness can allow for a sharing of
risk, as CSAs were originally conceived of doing, and even the commodification of these
relationships into community economic rents, as suggested by the CSA farmers with the
highest earnings, but it can also enhance the farmers’ sense of obligation to members to
the farmers’ economic detriment. For example, many CSA farmers noted that they
tended to give too much produce in their shares. As Farmer 13 stated, “I actually
made . . . my CSA shares smaller because I kept [saying], you know, ‘I really want them
to get a good value,’ and they [members] go [in the farms’ questionnaires], ‘We can’t eat
that much!’ [Laughing.] That was consistently the feedback I got. ‘This is too much!’”
Others mentioned the psychological pressure, an interpretation consistent with the
regression model: