This year I have taken a series of special actions for the benefit of the farming and agriculture sector in recognition of particularly difficult market and weather conditions. These actions included obtaining EU agreement on a number of occasions to significantly strengthen market supports for dairy products when the price of milk and dairy products became difficult during the summer. Because most milk is produced during the summer it was important to get that support up to September. We also secured EU agreement to allow the use of set-aside land for grazing-fodder. Early this summer we had considerable rainfall and wet weather and this measure was important. We negotiated the removal of the Russian county ban on beef exports – six counties had been precluded from exporting beef to Russia and we obtained EU agreement to allow an increase by up to 30% in beef export refunds to assist the beef industry in agreeing contracts for exports to Egypt.