CSA farms matter greatly because they create a number of benefits. They create
increased diversity of cultivated and noncultivated land; a more ecological and nontoxic agriculture; localized distribution that is less vulnerable to the depletion of fossil
fuels and disruption of the climate; greater social connections and understandings
between producers and consumers; and, in California, year-round employment that is
rare for farmworkers. Thus, the analysis presented here is a sympathetic one, meant
to provoke further discussions and analyses of the causes and consequences of
self-exploitation.
Although the profit rates of some farms for their CSAs are higher than for other market
channels, for most CSAs the return to farmers’ labor power is small and for many,
nonexistent. Most CSA farmers, like other farmers, undervalue their own work in monetary terms. Thus, self-exploitation in CSA is a real phenomenon and is unjust
because of the value that farmers provide to their members and society more broadly.
While I have highlighted the different rationalities at work, self-exploitation in CSA
should not exist since the original CSA concept insisted on a fair wage for the grower
(Henderson and Van En 2009; Lamb 1994). Yet self-exploitation does exist, in part
because social embeddedness creates a sense of personal obligation that cuts into
farmers’ economic well-being.