In order for farmers in the beef sector to gradually adjust to the new support arrangements provision should be made for a phasing-in of the integration of the special premium for male animals and the slaughter premium.

I will read into the record the names of these groups: the British Columbia Cattlemen's Association, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, the Dairy Farmers of Canada, the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association, the Ontario Farm Animal Council and the Dairy Farmers of Canada.

When we talk about the beef sector, we're talking primarily about our customers who are in the primary production side of things cow-calf operations and backgrounder and finisher operations as well as producers who have beef as a secondary line of their overall business.

Since Quebec farmers are mostly dairy producers, they end up with a lot of cull cows.

In most cases, the revenue of tobacco holdings was the lowest among all farm types, with the exception of the specialised beef producers in the beginning of the period and of the mixed beef-milk in the last year.

In this context I should like to highlight some of the changes taken up by the rapporteur and approved by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development concerning the regions that I know best, the Azores and Madeira. For instance: the eligibility of traditional varieties for the purposes of vineyard restructuring, including premiums for the grubbing-up of those varieties; maintenance of the supplement to the special premium for the fattening of bovine animals, so as to encourage farmers who have no more milk quota to change over to beef and ensure that the added value of fattening does not leave the region in the form of very young ...[+++] cattle for export; the flexibility of granting aid for the marketing of plants and flowers without the need to draw up annual contracts with producers’ organisations, which would be impossible in view of the inadequate organisation of agriculture in these regions; the extension of aid to the marketing of potatoes for human consumption; the increase in production rights and premiums for strategic productions, such as suckler cows, bovine animals for fattening, or sugar beet; improvement of the special supply arrangement with the inclusion of certain raw materials essential for the competitiveness of the compound feedingstuff production sector and consequently for the livestock sector.