Food and Agriculture

From 2011 to 2024, SPUR ran a program focused on food and agriculture policy. In May 2024, the program started a new chapter as Fullwell, an independent nonprofit public policy group working to put an end to food insecurity and create a healthy, just, and sustainable food system. The team continues to focus on the same campaigns it originated at SPUR, only from a new home. Learn more at fullwell.us.

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.

Featured Publications

Healthy Food Within Reach

Helping Bay Area residents find, afford and choose healthy food

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 the report >>

Locally Nourished

How a stronger regional food system benefits the Bay Area

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 the report >>

Public Harvest

Expanding the use of public land for urban agriculture in San Francisco

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 the report >>

Updates

A Technological Leap Makes Expanding Healthy Food Incentive Programs Easier

News / March 27, 2023

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 March 24, 2023

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 / March 17, 2023

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 March 7, 2023

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.

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

News / December 9, 2022

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.

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

News / October 26, 2022

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.