Stay tuned in to our local news coverage: Listen to 90.7 WMFE on your FM or HD radio, the WMFE mobile app or your smart speaker — say “Alexa, play NPR” and you’ll be connected.

Greg Asbed co-founded the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in 1993. He’s been named a MacArthur fellow, the only Floridian on this year’s list.

The so-called “genius grant” includes a $625,000 stipend, which Asbed says will go back into the work of the coalition. 

“In my line of work, which is human rights and social change, there is nothing you ever achieve that you do individually,” says Asbed.

“The coalition of Immokalee Workers, this incredible community here, my colleagues over the years, we all won this award together,” he says.

“It’s going to help fuel the expansion of our work, extend the protections of the fair food program to more and more workers, and that’s what we’re fighting for.”

Asbed explains how the Coalition of Immokalee Workers got started and how the Fair Food Program improves conditions for farm workers.