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  "description": "Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz is pushing global food prices toward another major shock. The last time inflation hit Canadians hard, grocery giants used the chaos to widen their margins. Joining a local CSA now is a way to lock in food prices and keep your money in the community.",
  "path": "/beat-food-inflation-and-support-a-local-farm-join-a-csa/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-14T20:30:17.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.langleyunion.ca",
  "tags": [
    "https://a-rocha-csa.square.site/",
    "Community Supported Agriculture Map - FarmFolk CityFolkWe’re passionate about food and agriculture and the folks that bring us our food.FarmFolk CityFolk",
    "A Rocha Farm and CSAOur CSA is more than fresh produce – it’s a way for you to experience the seasons and abundance of life on a local farm.A RochaAbby Simonin",
    "Canada’s Food Price Report 2026Dalhousie University",
    "The Looming Food Crisis: Why the Strait of Hormuz Is Disrupting Global AgricultureThe U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have raised fuel costs and caused shortages of key fertilizers around the world, wreaking havoc on the agricultural industry. Adam Hanieh, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at the University of London, says the effects could be felt for a long time, particularly in the Global South.\n“About a third of the world’s basic fertilizers now pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” says Hanieh, who adds that the “coming food crisis” is compounded by the climate and debt crises in much of the developing world. “It’s a perfect storm.”Democracy Now!Democracy Now!",
    "Strait of Hormuz disruptions: Implications for global trade and development |The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints, carrying around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers.UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)",
    "Why are veggies so expensive? Consumers crunched by climbing cucumber costsFresh veggies cost 7.8 per cent more in March compared to March last year, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent inflation numbers. And the worst offender? The mighty cucumber.Yahoo News UKCBC",
    "Canadian Grocery Profitability: Inflation, Wages and Financialization - Broadbent InstituteThis report examines the Canadian grocery industry to better understand what is driving retail profit growth, and as a result, higher supermarket food prices.Broadbent InstituteAlex Purdye",
    "An oligopoly is driving up grocery prices. What can we do? – Food Secure CanadaFood Secure CanadaWade Thorhaug",
    "Take the Survey"
  ],
  "textContent": "💚\n\n****Support Local News—Spread the Word****\nThe best way to help __The Langley Union__ grow is simple: share this newsletter. Forward it to a friend, mention it to your family, or post it on social media and encourage others to subscribe.\n\nFor the past several years, I have been a member of a Community Supported Agriculture program at a small farm in South Surrey called A Rocha.\n\nEvery Thursday from June through October, I pick up a canvas tote of fresh vegetables and herbs that I helped pay for back in the spring.\n\nI do this for a few reasons, starting with the food itself, which is exceptional. But more and more, I think CSA memberships are one of the most financially practical and politically radical things a household in Langley can do right now.\n\nHere is why.\n\n## Sign up for The Langley Union\n\nGet daily news updates and feature community stories from the only independent source that is 100% owned and operated in Langley, BC.\n\nSubscribe\n\nEmail sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.\n\nNo spam. No paywalls. Unsubscribe anytime.\n\n### Food prices are about to spike\n\nGlobal food prices are about to get a lot worse, and the squeeze is coming from a direction most of us have not been thinking about.\n\nOn March 4, 2026, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes on its territory. The strait is a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which roughly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil and around a fifth of its liquefied natural gas pass each day. Crucially, it is also a chokepoint for fertilizer.\n\nRoughly a third of the world's basic fertilizers normally transit Hormuz on their way to farms across North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.\n\nWhen that traffic stopped, the International Energy Agency called it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Brent crude punched past $120 a barrel in March. Canadian gas prices jumped roughly 30 percent from March to April.\n\nFresh vegetable prices in Canada were already up 7.8 percent year over year in March, and University of Guelph food economist Michael von Massow attributed the bulk of that monthly bump directly to fuel costs.\n\nThe chain is not complicated.\n\nHigher oil prices mean higher diesel for tractors and freight trucks. Disrupted fertilizer supply means lower yields. Disrupted shipping means pricier imports. All of those costs get passed down to households. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that the strait closure could push 45 million more people into hunger globally.\n\nCloser to home, Dalhousie University's Food Price Report had already forecast Canadian families would spend up to $994 more on groceries this year, and that was published before the war shut down the waterway.\n\n### Greedflation 2.0?\n\nNow layer the next thing on top.\n\nThe last time inflation hit Canadian households hard, our grocery oligopoly treated it as a profit opportunity. The data is not really in dispute anymore.\n\nThe Broadbent Institute, Food Secure Canada, and the federal House of Commons Agriculture Committee have all documented what critics dubbed \"greedflation,\" which is the practice of raising prices faster than input costs to expand margins.\n\nCanadian grocers nearly tripled their profit margins between 2020 and 2024. Loblaw posted record quarterly earnings while families were skipping meals, and CEO Galen Weston Jr. blamed his suppliers.\n\nFive companies, Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart, and Costco, control at least 80 percent of the national grocery market. There is no real reason to assume they will behave any differently this time around.\n\nSo we are facing a genuine supply shock, layered with the near certainty that the corporations sitting between farmers and our pantries will use the chaos to widen their margins again.\n\nNone of us individually can fix that.\n\nBut there is one thing each of us can do that meaningfully insulates our household budget, supports our local food economy, and chips away at corporate grocery power all at once.\n\nThat thing is joining a Community Supported Agriculture program.\n\n### Community Supported Agriculture\n\nA CSA is, at its simplest, a subscription to a farm.\n\nYou pay the farmer in the spring, when their costs are highest, and in return you receive a weekly share of the harvest through the growing season.\n\nThe farmer gets working capital to buy seeds and pay wages. You get fresh, local food at prices locked in months in advance, which do not move when the news does. You also share in the risk.\n\nIf a heat dome wipes out the lettuce, that is part of the deal. If the tomatoes come in heavy, you eat well. The model is older than industrial agriculture itself, and it works best when it is rooted in a specific place.\n\nIn our case, that place is the South of Fraser, and I want to focus on one farm in particular as a case study, because I have been a member there for years and trust the people running it.\n\n### A Rocha Canada\n\nA Rocha Canada operates a small mixed vegetable and flower farm at 1620 192 St in South Surrey, on the Ta'talu River watershed.\n\nTheir CSA runs 22 weeks from June through October, with pickup Tuesdays at the farm or Thursdays in East Vancouver.\n\nPricing is tiered by household size, currently $34.57 per week for a one-adult share, $51.85 for two adults, and $69.13 for three or more, with a sliding scale available for members who need it.\n\nMembers fill a canvas tote each week from whatever is in season, choosing 10 to 15 crops out of a roster of more than 100 varieties.\n\nWhat I particularly like about A Rocha is the politics built into the operation (note: A Rocha Canada is a very non-political organisation, but the way in which they manage their farm has distinct political influences and downstream affects).\n\nThey use regenerative practices, are transitioning to no-till in order to sequester carbon and protect soil, and they treat their farm as part of the larger work of stewarding the Little Campbell River watershed. They pay farm apprentices through the Young Agrarians program.\n\nThey also run a Farm to Families initiative that donated more than 5,000 pounds of vegetables last year to newcomer families, seniors, and school children through community partners. They do not hide the trade-offs of farming behind grocery store lighting.\n\nTo be clear, this is not sponsored content. A Rocha did not pay me to write this, and they are not paying The Langley Union. I am simply a satisfied member who thinks more of my neighbours should know about the operation.\n\nYou can subscribe at https://a-rocha-csa.square.site/\n\n### Other Local CSA Programs\n\nA Rocha is not the only option, and depending on where you live in Langley and which pickup day works for you, another farm may suit you better.\n\nHere are a few worth considering.\n\n**Pinsch of Soil Farm** is a small family farm on 208 Street in Langley's Brookswood neighbourhood, run by Nadja Moritz. Their Feast to Feast CSA is one of the longest seasons in the region at 24 weeks, running from early May through mid-October. Medium shares are $575 and large shares are $800, with pickup at the farm Mondays or Fridays, or home delivery in Brookswood on Fridays. Their site is pinschofsoilfarm.ca.\n\n**Glen Valley Organic Farm** runs Close to Home Organics out of a cooperatively owned 50-acre property in Abbotsford, on the unceded territories of the Kwantlen and Matsqui First Nations. They have been certified organic since 1992, are a Living Wage employer, and hold Salmon-Safe certification. They offer pickup in Langley. Their site is glenvalleycsa.com.\n\n**Sweet Earth Farms** is a small family farm in the mountains behind Chilliwack offering a 17-week summer CSA and a 14-week autumn CSA. Boxes include vegetables, eggs, cheese, sourdough, mushrooms, and grains from a network of partner farms. They have a Langley pickup near 208 Street and 80 Avenue. Their site is sweetearthfarms.ca.\n\n**Glorious Organics** is a worker-owned cooperative on Fraser Common Farm in Aldergrove, growing certified organic salad greens, vegetables, and herbs on unceded Kwantlen territory. Their site is gloriousorganics.com.\n\n**Central Park Farms** in Langley operates a monthly Ranch Club delivering grass-fed beef and pasture-raised pork and chicken from their family farm year-round, with farm-store pickup in Langley. Their site is centralparkfarms.com.\n\nFor a fuller picture, the FarmFolk CityFolk CSA directory at farmfolkcityfolk.ca is the best province-wide map.\n\nCommunity Supported Agriculture Map - FarmFolk CityFolkWe’re passionate about food and agriculture and the folks that bring us our food.FarmFolk CityFolk\n\nNone of this fixes the bigger problem.\n\nWe need real federal action on grocery concentration, a Grocery Code of Conduct with actual teeth, support for regional food infrastructure, and a foreign policy that does not light global shipping chokepoints on fire.\n\nWe need to keep pushing on all of that.\n\nBut while we are pushing, we can also eat.\n\nWe can pay our neighbours to grow our food. We can lock in this year's prices before the next round of corporate restructuring tells us a cucumber is now $5.\n\nWe can put a few hundred dollars into the hands of a farmer who pays a living wage, stewards a watershed, and feeds new neighbours, rather than into a shareholder dividend.\n\nThat is a deal worth making.\n\n### References and Further Reading\n\nA Rocha Farm and CSAOur CSA is more than fresh produce – it’s a way for you to experience the seasons and abundance of life on a local farm.A RochaAbby SimoninCanada’s Food Price Report 2026Dalhousie UniversityThe Looming Food Crisis: Why the Strait of Hormuz Is Disrupting Global AgricultureThe U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have raised fuel costs and caused shortages of key fertilizers around the world, wreaking havoc on the agricultural industry. Adam Hanieh, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at the University of London, says the effects could be felt for a long time, particularly in the Global South.\n“About a third of the world’s basic fertilizers now pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” says Hanieh, who adds that the “coming food crisis” is compounded by the climate and debt crises in much of the developing world. “It’s a perfect storm.”Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Strait of Hormuz disruptions: Implications for global trade and development |The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints, carrying around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers.UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)Why are veggies so expensive? Consumers crunched by climbing cucumber costsFresh veggies cost 7.8 per cent more in March compared to March last year, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent inflation numbers. And the worst offender? The mighty cucumber.Yahoo News UKCBCCanadian Grocery Profitability: Inflation, Wages and Financialization - Broadbent InstituteThis report examines the Canadian grocery industry to better understand what is driving retail profit growth, and as a result, higher supermarket food prices.Broadbent InstituteAlex PurdyeAn oligopoly is driving up grocery prices. What can we do? – Food Secure CanadaFood Secure CanadaWade Thorhaug\n\n* * *\n\n###  What did you think?\n\nHelp us improve! Take a quick 60-second survey to share your thoughts on this article.\n\n Take the Survey ",
  "title": "Beat Food Inflation and Support a Local Farm: Join a CSA",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-14T20:30:20.252Z"
}