This week brought another big victory for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the organization that has been working tirelessly to improve working conditions and wages for farmworkers.

The press release notes that the immediate benefits will accrue to tens of thousands of Florida farmworkers–not a small population by any means–but the real benefit as I see it as the potential for this to benefits farmworkers across the country. Each time another significant player in the food market signs on, the pressure becomes greater on others (ahem, Publix) to join the Fair Food Program.

The CIW announcement addressed the short- and long-term implications of this week’s development; Barry Estabrook, who investigated the conditions of farmworkers in the Florida tomato industry for his superb book, Tomatoland, described this as an “historic stride forward” in his contribution to Civil Eats.