Farmer known as an outspoken advocate of the rights of growers.

Harry Kubo, cofounder of the Nisei Farmers League, passed away on Dec. 8. He was 84. Kubo served as president of the league, an organization of 1,000 farmers, for 25 years and established a reputation as an outspoken advocate of farm growers’ rights.

Kubo was born in Sacramento in 1922, one of six children in a poor family. His father was a migrant farm worker in Loomis, Calif., where Kubo lived for 18 years.

When World War II broke out, Kubo and his family were interned at the Tule Lake Relocation Center for four years. After the war, he went to work as a farm laborer in Sanger, Calif., where he worked for 75 cents an hour harvesting crops and working in packing houses.

After four years, the Kubos bought a 40-acre farm in Parlier which eventually grew to its 210 acres of peaches, plums, nectarines and table grapes.

Kubo was an outspoken and frequently blunt proponent of free enterprise, private property rights, freedom of opportunity and individual resourcefulness and spoke at various meeting and conferences throughout the United States on agricultural issues during his 19 years as president of the Nisei Farmers League.

In 1976 California growers formed Citizens for a Fair Farm Labor Law and elected Kubo president to lead the campaign which opposed and defeated Proposition 14 (the farm labor initiative).

After leaving the Nisei Farmers League in 1996, Kubo served as president of the Farm Labor Alliance, Inc. which worked on the Immigration Reform an Control Act of 1986 and president of the California Fresh Fruit Growers which works for better marketing of products raised by the farmer in the valley.

He also served as president of the Agricultural Action Committee, a group representing various segments in farming concerned with legal matters.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Kubo; son, Larry Kubo and his wife Gwen of Clovis; daughter, Leslie Kubo of Gardena; stepdaughters, Pam Young and husband Ed of Clovis and Carol Young and husband Ray of Visalia; stepson, Jeff Fukushima and his wife Wendy of Trabuco Canyon; grandchildren, Kellen, Kendal and Dalee Kubo, Tristan and Lauren Young, Cory and Caitlyn Young and Karisa and Jeremy Fukushima; brother, George Kubo; sisters, Mary Hirata, Mae Hosaka and Flora Doi; sister-in-law Chiz Kubo of Kingsburg. A funeral service was held on Dec. 14.