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
The State of Good Food Purchasing in 2022
Policy Brief Bay Area schools, jails and hospitals are working to align their spending with the five core values of the Good Food Purchasing Program, procuring food that is local, sustainable, fair, humane and healthy. SPUR and The Center for Good Food Purchasing identify seven strategies to support institutions in aligning supply and demand to build a more resilient, sustainable and equitable regional food system and share a regional data dashboard to track progress.
SPUR Recommendations for the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, Hunger, and Health
Advocacy Letter For the first time in more than 50 years the White House is hosting a national conference on food, nutrition and health. SPUR provided recommendations on how to improve hunger and health based on successful pilots in the Bay Area and California at large.
SPUR Comments on Proposed Food Insecurity Screening Tools
Advocacy Letter SPUR supports integrating food-based interventions such as produce prescriptions and medically tailored meals into healthcare. To fully integrate these services, it is helpful to screen patients for food insecurity which the measures discussed in this letter would allow.
SPUR Recommends Adopting the Soda Tax Advisory Committee Budget Recommendations
Advocacy Letter SPUR and a coalition of organizations recommend adopting the Sugary Drink Tax Advisory Committee (SDDTAC) Budget recommendations in a letter to the Board of Supervisors.
How to Make California’s Budget Surplus a Good Deal for the Climate
News / California is dangerously behind on cutting carbon emissions, but this year’s budget surplus can be a weapon in the fight to address climate change, with Governor Newsom announcing plans to spend $37 billion over the next six years on climate resilience. Here are SPUR’s suggestions for how to focus those resources on eliminating fossil fuels in buildings, securing safe and abundant water, ending car dependence, improving transit, building affordable housing where we need it and more.
SPUR Supports Voluntary Financial Incentives for the Coyote Valley Climate
Advocacy Letter SPUR, 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.