Peter Kendall is elected as NFU president

Peter Kendall is the new president of the NFU, Farmers Weekly can reveal.

The former vice-president beat off the challenge of Better NFU candidate, David Handley, and ousted sitting president Tim Bennett in the closely fought election battle on Tuesday 28 Feb.

It is the first time in the union’s recent history that a president has been voted out of office.

Speaking ahead of the NFU officeholder elections, Mr Kendall said: “I have new ideas and will not accept an ‘it won’t work attitude’.

“We’re at a “make or break” point in the history of our industry and I’m determined to give farmers confidence in the future.

“[The union’s] communication has been a disaster. We need to sort out this issue once and for all.

“We have good messages to give; we just need to be cleverer at getting them out.”

Mr Kendall who runs a 620ha specialist arable unit in Eyeworth, East Bedfordshire, is a past director of the Arable Research Centre and former member of the HGCA’s British Cereal Exports and Crop Marketing advisory boards.

He joined the NFU Council and Cereals Committee in 1999 and became committee chairman in 2003 before being elected to the NFU board in 2003.

He is 43 years old and married to Emma who works in marketing for a local food ingredients company.

Meurig Raymond, previously vice-president, has been elected as deputy president and Paul Temple takes up the vice president’s role.