Tipperary farmer Tim Cullinan has been elected as president of the Irish Farmers' Association.
Mr Cullinan, the current national treasurer of the IFA, was voted in ahead of Munster chairman John Coughlan and livestock chairman Angus Woods to succeed Joe Healy as president for a two-year term.
He will take up his role in January, after securing 11,497 votes.
While the IFA has about 70,000 members, just under 23,000 voted across its nearly 1,000 branches.
Following the result, Mr Cullinan addressed voters at the Castleknock Hotel in Dublin saying that he had been a candidate for change.
He said: "I want to assure all who voted for me and those who voted for the other candidates that IFA will be fiercely on your side with only one objective, to deliver results for farmers.
“Agriculture is a mainstay of the Irish economy and one with a celebrated international reputation.
"Making sure [farmers] get their fair share of income, irrespective of what that takes, will be the focus of my presidency. That will mean, as my campaign slogan ran, putting the fight back into farming.”
Mr Cullinan said his first priority will be the beef crisis amid a protest by a group of independent farmers in Dublin city centre today.
He said the issue "is by no means done".
He added: "This crisis is going on for a year and a half and factories have to realise if they want a beef industry in Ireland, they will have to pay for it.”
His other priorities as president would be developing a general election programme with the IFA’s demands, CAP reform, the CAP budget and environmental restrictions.
He concluded: "I intend to represent all farmers, to do whatever is necessary to unify farmers as what we have seen of late is that the only winners when farmers are divided are the very ones we are fighting against.
"We must unite in whatever way we can to bring a single voice to all those who have their hands in farmers’ pockets and say that enough is enough.”
The Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed congratulated Mr Cullinan, saying that he looks forward "to working constructively with the incoming IFA leadership to address the many challenges facing Irish farmers".
Additional reporting by Shane Beatty
