Food and Agriculture
Our goal: Create healthy, just and sustainable food systems, and put an end to food insecurity.
SPUR’s Five-Year Priorities:
• Make healthy food easier to find, afford and choose.
• Preserve agricultural land and reduce the food systems’ environmental impact.
• Support Good Food Purchasing practices, access to farmland and industrial land for farmers and producers, and quality jobs in the food industry.
Double Up Food Bucks California
Piloting a scalable model for making healthy food more affordable
One of the biggest obstacles to healthy eating is the affordability of healthy food. Our Double Up Food Bucks California project helps families overcome that barrier. The project provides matching funds so that families and individuals participating in the CalFresh program can buy even more fresh fruits and vegetables at the grocery store.
Medically-Supportive Food and Nutrition
Expanding health care coverage to use food as medicine
The need for these food-based interventions in Medicaid has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which highlighted many health and social inequities, especially for Black and Brown communities. This pandemic emphasizes the need to use food to treat and prevent chronic disease and to decrease the effects of health disparities and food insecurity on chronic disease.
SPUR Report
Healthy Food Within Reach
One in 10 adults in the Bay Area struggle to find three meals a day, while more than half of adults are overweight or obese. To meet our basic needs, improve public health and enhance our quality of life, Bay Area residents must have access to healthy food. SPUR recommends 12 actions that local governments can take to improve food access in Bay Area communities.
SPUR Report
Locally Nourished
The Bay Area’s food system supports our greenbelt, employs hundreds of thousands of people, and helps reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. SPUR's recommends a series of policies to help us more effectively capture the benefits of our regional food system.
SPUR Report
Public Harvest
Urban agriculture has captured the imagination of San Franciscans in recent years. But the city won't realize all the benefits of this growing interest unless it provides more land, more resources and better institutional support.
Ongoing Initiative
Double Up Food Bucks California
Double Up Food Bucks California provides matching funds so that families and individuals participating in the CalFresh program can buy even more fresh fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. For example, a shopper who spends $10 of CalFresh benefits on California-grown fruits and vegetables at participating stores will get an extra $10 to spend on any fresh produce in the store.
Updates and Events
SPUR Supports Voluntary Financial Incentives for the Coyote Valley Climate
Advocacy LetterSPUR, alongside the Santa Clara County Food System Alliance, supports Santa Clara County staff's recommendation to pursue the prioritization of voluntary financial incentives for the preservation of agricultural land in Coyote Valley.
SPUR Supports Incentive Fund for Values Based School Meals
Advocacy LetterSPUR supports providing incentive funds to the 14 school districts participating in the Good Food Purchasing Program, who serve over 940,000 students, which would allow changes to food purchasing that would decrease carbon emissions, water use and pesticide use.
SPUR Supports Senate Bill 907: Local Equitable Access to Food
Advocacy LetterSPUR supports SB 907, which would establish a non-competitive grant program to expand access to Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) services at all certified farmers’ markets across California.
SPUR Supports Various Proposals for CA Food Safety Net Investments at March 3rd Hearing
Advocacy LetterSPUR supports investments outlined in the March 3, 2022 agenda for the Senate Budget Subcommittee 3 on Health and Human Services related to increasing access to the food safety net and strengthening the support that the safety net provides.
SPUR and Others to Pilot New Technology for Making Healthy Food More Affordable
News /California has reached a milestone in its effort to make healthy, California-grown food more affordable for low-income residents. The California Department of Social Services has awarded contracts to SPUR and two other nonprofits for pilot projects that will test new technology for providing healthy food incentives.
Can San Francisco Schools Help Drive Demand for Fair, Healthy, Sustainable Food?
News /Every year the San Francisco Unified School District spends more than $12 million on food — a significant opportunity to drive demand for food that positively impacts people, the planet and animals. In 2016, the district adopted the Good Food Purchasing Policy, which sets standards for fair, healthy and sustainable food. The district has now met requirements in four of the five categories, setting a solid example for other institutions to follow.