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 AB 311, a Bill to Expand the California Food Assistance Program
Advocacy Letter SPUR supports AB 311 (Santiago) “Food for All”, which would expand the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP) to provide vital food assistance to income-eligible Californians who are currently ineligible due to their immigration status.
SPUR Supports SB 600, a Bill to Boost CalFresh Benefits
Advocacy Letter SPUR supports SB 600 (Menjicar)– CalFresh Minimum Benefit Adequacy Act of 2023. The bill would boost CalFresh benefits, particularly for those who receive meager and inadequate allotments below $50 per month.
Two State Bills Aim to Shore Up the Food Safety Net
News / The convergence of high food prices and the end of CalFresh emergency allotments is hitting low-income Californians hard. SPUR is co-sponsoring two bills to keep struggling households from slipping through the food safety net. Both would make proven pilots into permanent benefits that reduce hunger and improve public health.
A Technological Leap Makes Expanding Healthy Food Incentive Programs Easier
News / California has taken a big step forward in scaling up healthy food incentive programs: CalFresh participants can now get bonus dollars from their healthy food purchases electronically credited to their benefits card. That technological leap happened because of legislation SPUR co-sponsored. Now SPUR is working to overcome the remaining challenge to enlarging healthy food incentive programs: insufficient funding.
SPUR and the Food as Medicine Collaborative Support AB 1644, a Bill to Cover Food and Nutrition Interventions with Medi-Cal Benefits
Advocacy Letter SPUR and the Food as Medicine Collaborative, as co-sponsors of the legislation, support of AB 1644 (Bonta), which would transition medically supportive food and nutrition interventions from optional services in healthcare to covered Medi-Cal benefits. By fully embracing food and nutrition support as a critical and strategic investment in health outcomes and health equity, California can lead the nation in tackling root causes of health disparities.
Averting a Worsening Hunger Crisis Hinges on Making Temporary Benefits Programs Permanent
News / Recipients of CalFresh food assistance are about to take a big hit: emergency allotments authorized during the COVID-19 pandemic are set to expire just as food costs are at historic highs. SPUR is working to make temporary food access programs permanent and has just launched a statewide project institutionalizing supplemental benefits by making them directly reimbursable to recipients’ EBT cards.