Frenchwoman Christiane Lambert has been re-elected unanimously as COPA president for a second two-year term, a first in more than 15 years, at a meeting of the European farm organisation umbrella group.

COPA also elected five vice-presidents at the members' meeting last week in Praesidia, France, including Irish Farmers Association (IFA) president Tim Cullinan and his equivalent farm leaders from Italy, Spain, Croatia, Sweden and Romania.

Commenting on her reappointment as COPA president, Lambert, a pig and tillage farmer and agricultural trade unionist, said she is “particularly aware of the challenges that will arise over the next two years”, as farmers “will have to deal with multiple crises resulting from the war in Ukraine, climate change or the historical tensions on energy prices,” while the “regulatory work around the green deal will enter its critical phase”.

The Frenchwoman has headed the French farm organisation Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d’Exploitants Agricoles (FNSEA) since 2017. She runs over 200 sows and cultivates over 100ha of crops with her husband Thierry in west France (Maine-et-Loire).

‘Sustainable growth model’

Following her re-election, she thanked all of her colleagues “for their trust and for their choice of continuity by reappointing me for a second term at the head of COPA”.

Lambert called for greater “vigilance” in order to “avoid hindering the adaptation and modernisation of the EU farming sector”. She said that EU agriculture “has the capacity and the duty to pursue its sustainable growth model”.

Food security is back on the agenda, the re-elected COPA president stated, pledging to “ensure that this issue remains at the heart of European decisions and that farmers are sufficiently recognised and considered by decision-makers”.