Longtime and legendary Manitoba farm movement player Bob Douglas died recently at age 80.
For more than three decades, he was the organizational mainstay for a succession of Manitoba farm groups, beginning as executive secretary of the Manitoba Federation of Agriculture and Co-operation in the early 1960s.
He was a main player in creation of the successor organization Manitoba Farm Bureau in 1965 and served as its executive secretary until an upheaval among prairie farm organizations killed the MFB in 1984.
He then was instrumental in creating the successor Keystone Agricultural Producers, serving as its general manager until 1993. It remains the province’s general farm organization.
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Throughout his career in Manitoba farm politics, Douglas worked with farmers to create marketing boards and was active in the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
In 1989, he negotiated with the federal government to create the Manitoba Agricultural Training Project.
In 2000, the federal government appointed him an assistant commissioner of the Canadian Grain Commission for a six-year term.
He also served for a decade as a Winnipeg city councilor.
In 2004, Douglas was inducted into the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame,
In his later years, he dabbled in federal politics, working in election campaigns for Winnipeg Liberal MP John Harvard and then for former CFA president Bob Friesen when he ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals in a Winnipeg riding in 2008.
