A regional equity report from The Fund for Santa Barbara, the UCSB Blum Center, and the USC Equity Research Institute, examining wages, housing, criminal justice, education, and environmental inequities across Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties.
Buy Better: How Food Policy Councils Leverage Procurement to Improve Food Worker Conditions
This Lender Center for Social Justice Policy Research Brief (Syracuse University, November 2025) examines how Food Policy Councils (FPCs) can better serve the frontline food system workers — farm laborers, grocery clerks, restaurant staff, and food processors — who keep local food systems running but are rarely represented in the councils that shape food policy. Drawing on national survey data and interviews with more than 25 FPC leaders, the authors find that structural constraints, internal conflicts, limited capacity, and weak ties to labor organizations keep FPCs from meaningfully engaging with labor issues.
The brief argues that to build fairer, more inclusive food systems, FPCs should actively include frontline workers in decision-making, use local policy tools to raise labor standards, leverage public procurement to reward ethical labor practices, and build stronger partnerships with worker advocacy groups.
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