Greg Asbed

Greg Asbed is an American activist, labor organizer, and human rights strategist. He is the co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a worker-based human rights organization based in Immokalee, Florida, working to eradicate modern slavery in the Floridian agriculture industry. In 2017 Asbed was named a MacArthur Fellow for "transforming conditions for low-wage workers with a visionary model of worker-driven social responsibility."

Early life and education Asbed is a first-generation Armenian American; his grandmother, Hripsimee, is survivor of the Armenian genocide who was forced into Syria. In a 2017 interview, Asbed connected this fact to his human rights work, stating "I have always felt a certain responsibility, as a bearer of DNA that was forged in the crucible of genocide, to the idea of universal human rights."

Asbed attended the Landon School and enrolled at Brown University. At Brown he studied neuroscience, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1985.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

After working with laborers in Pennsylvania and Maryland, Asbed and his wife moved to Immokalee, Florida, in 1991. As of 2017, 90% of tomato growers in Florida participate in the program. The Fair Food Program has been hailed for its success in combating modern slavery in Southwest Florida and hailed as an exemplary paradigm for improving the rights of farmworkers.