MANATEE -- Farmworkers and Florida tomato growers announced Tuesday they had signed a landmark deal, setting out specifics for better pay and conditions.

The deal was announced at Immokalee during a joint press conference with The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, representing 4,000 members, and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 25 companies that handle 90 percent of the state’s volume.

Workers will get a penny more per pound of the tomatoes they pick, and the coalition is already in the fields training more than 1,000 tomato pickers about their rights, officials said.

The coalition has for years pressed growers to boost wages for the state’s tomato pickers, who pick most of the nation’s domestically grown winter tomatoes.

In 2005, the coalition persuaded Taco Bell to pay more per pound of tomatoes so the money could be passed on to the workers. Other deals followed, but some of the growers refused to honor them.

A Palmetto company, Pacific Tomato Growers, was the first in the state to sign its own direct agreement with the workers’ coalition earlier this fall, said its operating partner, Jon Esformes.

“Pacific Tomato Growers is thrilled, as a member of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, to be part of this,” he said.

Tuesday’s announcement was important because “we believe absolutely the entire industry is well-served by doing this,” he said.

“Employee health and safety has always been important, and this is another step in the process of businesses both doing a better job of providing that, and being open and accountable for employee health and safety,” said Esformes.

Manatee County growers produce 40 percent of the state’s tomato crop, farming more than 12,000 acres for an economic impact of $200 million, The Herald has previously reported.

Many of the top officers of other big Palmetto tomato firms were intimately familiar with the deal through their work with the growers’ exchange, but declined comment or were unavailable Tuesday.

“I normally comment on things like this, but on this one, I’m going to keep my mouth shut,” said Bob Spencer, vice president of Palmetto’s West Coast Tomato.

However, Reggie Brown, executive vice president for the growers’ exchange, called it “a step into the future of social accountability.”

“And, like all journeys, they all start with one step,” he said, noting that participating growers and coalition negotiators had “arrived at a viable business solution” after trying for the better part of a decade.

Literally thousands of farmworkers will benefit, Brown said.

His thought was echoed by Luz Corcuera, program director for the Healthy Start Coalition of Manatee County, an agency that provides services to pregnant women, infants and families, whose work frequently takes her to migrant camps where farmworkers live.

“First of all, I am so excited to see this agreement finally come to fruition,” she said. She noted that the group at Immokalee had not only won pay increases, but also won commitments for improved living conditions.

She called it a long overdue “victory for the farmworkers.”

“It will help them feel they’ve been heard and, second, that they are human beings, and we value their hard work under very difficult conditions, Corcuera said.

“There are thousands of them that have felt they have no rights, and this agreement will not only increase their wages, but give them a sense that people care about them. It is thanks to their hard work we are able to have food at our table.”

-- Associated Press contributed to this article.