Federation members yesterday elected 33-year-old Bridgewater farmer Andrew Broad to lead the VFF into a radical restructure program aimed at cutting operational costs by $1 million over the next 12 months.

Mr Broad said his election indicated Victoria's farmers were looking for change. But he said turning the organisation around would require a united effort.

"We've got commodities that need to take ownership that they are part of Victorian agriculture."

VFF members were earlier told the VFF had suffered a $5.17 million loss in 2008, with stock market losses costing the federation $3.3million, $2.7million of which were unrealised as at December 31, 2008. The VFF's operational loss for $2008, excluding the unrealised sharemarket losses was $2.47 million.

VFF chief executive officer Wayne Harvey said staff had been offered voluntary redundancies but he would not disclose how many of the federation's 52 staff positions would be discontinued. See more VFF conference stories in Stock and Land next Thursday.