Mr. Nick Ashmore:

We designed this to work for every sector. As the exceptional aid only came for livestock farmers - which caught a vast number of farmers - the Department and Minister were very concerned to ensure we made this work for all farmers, not only livestock farmers. The additional funding was provided and the de minimisarrangements put in place for this reason. In the past, we have not used de minimisstate-aid options for lending because, for instance, many beef farmers get a lot of emergency fodder in and one does not know from one year to the next whether they will need it. If they have used up their de minimisallocation on a loan, they would be precluded from getting that.