Bob Bergland, Agriculture Secretary Under Carter, Dies at 90

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Bob Bergland, Agriculture Secretary Under Carter, Dies at 90

By Robert D. McFadden
Dec. 9, 2018

Bob Bergland, a Minnesota Democrat who as a liberal congressman and President Jimmy Carter’s secretary of agriculture was a zealous advocate for America’s consumers as well as its farmers, died on Sunday in his hometown, Roseau, Minn. He was 90.

Mr. Bergland’s son, Franklyn, said he died at LifeCare Roseau Manor, a nursing home where he had resided recently.

A descendant of 19th century Norwegians who settled in the blizzard country of northern Minnesota, Mr. Bergland experienced poverty, unemployment and the loss of his farm as a young man. Later, representing a vast, largely rural district in Congress from 1971 to 1977, and then as a member of the Carter cabinet until 1981, he spoke passionately about his hard-pressed constituents.

“I know what it’s like to be poor,” he told The New York Times in 1978. “I know those times when we lost a crop and couldn’t find steady work around Roseau. I couldn’t buy milk for my kids then. I’m terribly upset when people who don’t know what they’re talking about criticize the poor who are struggling and want to work.”

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/09/obituaries/bob-bergland-dies.html

[Wellstone ruled]

1. For those DFL ers who

knew Bob,he was the real deal. Northwestern Minnesota would not be what it is today without the Bob Bergland's efforts to bring Industry to what we called the North Woods.