Every year, The Florida Trend 500 sets out to identify the 500 most influential Floridians. In the category Philanthropy/Non-Profits, Greg Asbed was named one of 500 most influential Floridians of 2018. Through his Coalition of Immokalee Workers organization, Mr. Asbed has helped farmworkers win more influence in how they are treated in the fields and transformed the condition for low-wage workers. Greg and his wife, Laura Germino, have lived in LaBelle for 27 years. Greg coaches Upward flag football and Junior Pro basketball. His son Isaiah Asbed went to Upthegrove Elementary, LaBelle Middle and LaBelle High School. In 2017, Mr. Asbed was honored with the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He is a co-founder of the Fair Food Program and the Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model. This model was considered a breakthrough, worker-driven approach to verifiable corporate accountability that is recognized by observers from the United Nations to the White House because of its unique effectiveness in combatting forced labor, sexual violence and other various human rights violations in agriculture. Mr. Asbed has a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Brown University and a master’s in international economics and social change and development from Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He speaks English, Spanish and Haitian Creole. He also spent 18 seasons harvesting watermelons across the Southeastern United States. Mr. Asbed is a co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) together with Lucas Benitez and his wife, Laura. CIW is a worker-based human rights organization internationally recognized for its achievements in the fields of social responsibility, human trafficking, and gender-based violence at work. The idea behind the worker-driven social responsibility model is based on the Fair Food Program, of which Asbed is the principal architect. With his Fair Food Program, Mr. Asbed leads the way in the development of innovative market-based enforcement mechanisms, rights standards and worker education processes. He coordinates the relations with transnational corporate buyers such as McDonald’s and Walmart, as well as the industry suppliers and farmworkers. This program has been effective in pressuring fast-food companies and supermarket chains to buy produce only from farms and growers that agree to a Fair Food Program-generated list of human rights guidelines, including fair treatment and better wages. The Fair Food Program partners and hundreds of their employees live and work the Labelle area, including Lipman Produce and Sunripe. With his revolutionary worker-driven model approach and the Fair Food Programs, Greg Asbed has significantly improved the conditions for the low-wage farmworkers, and that is why Mr. Asbed is one of the most influential Floridians of 2018.