People eating food in a community garden

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.

 

​ Read our policy agenda

 

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.

Healthy Food Project

Read more about the project

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Medically-Supportive Food and Nutrition

Read more about the project

Close-up of apples

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.
Read More
Fruit haning from a tree

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.
Read More

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.

Read More

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.

Read More

Updates and Events

people grocery shopping on stockton street in sf

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.

SPUR co-sponsors CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable Supplemental Benefits Expansion (AB 605)

Advocacy Letter
Expanding CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable Supplemental Benefits to be available to hundreds of thousands of households across the state will, in the short-term, help families afford the foods they need to stay healthy and help alleviate some of the economic strain they are facing with SNAP emergency allotments ending. In the long-term, it will position the program to become permanently available to CalFresh families throughout California. It is a “win-win-win” that reduces hunger, improves public health, and boosts California’s agricultural economy.
soda bottles

How Are Oakland and San Francisco Spending Their Soda Tax Revenues?

News /
Each year SPUR tracks how Oakland and San Francisco allocate the revenues from soda taxes, which are meant to reduce the harms of soda consumption. Specifically, we’ve looked at how well each city’s budget reflects equity-focused recommendations aimed at keeping the spending aligned with the taxes’ stated purpose. This year, we added a new dimension to our analysis by asking whether the two taxes reflect key principles of good government. We found that their implementation could be more transparent and efficient.
grocery

Why Food Insecurity Is Still High in California — and What the State Can Do About It

News /
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment and food insecurity greatly increased in California, and enrollment in CalFresh — the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — went up significantly. As need has significantly increased, especially for Black and brown Californians, too many of the state’s residents still don’t have enough to eat. This article looks at ideas to help eliminate hunger in California, including automatic enrollment, targeted outreach, state administration of CalFresh, permanently streamlining enrollment and expanding pilot programs that help low-income Californians afford more fresh foods.
report covers

Research Fellows and Interns Make Major Contributions to SPUR’s Work

News /
During the last two academic years, SPUR has been fortunate to host a talented group of policy researchers through partnerships with graduate school fellowship and practicum programs. Their research has contributed to SPUR’s work, including policy changes and proposed legislation at the regional and state levels. Learn more about the work they’ve done with SPUR and what they’ve gone on to do after collaborating with us.
white house

Key SPUR Food and Ag Policies Get National Limelight

News /
After a 50-year hiatus, the White House is hosting its second-ever Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. In an effort to frame the agenda for the conference, a coalition of organizations has released a report proposing 30 federal policy recommendations. Three of SPUR’s top priorities at the state and local level are among those recommendations, and they are now firmly in the national spotlight as the conference approaches.
Get Our Newsletters