Valentin Zahrnt identifies two main questions that need to be answered in the forthcoming CAP and EU budget reforms. First, how can agriculture help to address Europe’s environmental challenges? And second, how much public money should the CAP receive during the harshest period for EU finances in decades? While I agree that these are the key questions, several of his proposed solutions don’t address the main environmental issues.

One impression that must be corrected straight away is the idea that agriculture is costly to the public purse. The fact that the CAP accounts for 40% of the EU budget is not a sign that EU agricultural policy is expensive; it is a consequence of agriculture being the most integrated economic sector within the Union. This means that public spending on farming is very largely channelled through the CAP, rather than through member states’ own national budgets. Recent data ranks agriculture 11th in terms of public expenditure by sector, accounting for just 1.1% of total spending by member states and the European community combined. That is well behind social and healthcare spending, which took 55.6% of the total in 2006, education 11.3%, energy and transport 2.2% or even R&D with 1.5%. Thus the CAP budget should not be seen as "the enemy.” It is the most important tool available to the EU to respond to a wide range of environmental concerns – from climate change and biodiversity to food quality, water and soil issues, diversification of landscapes and carbon storage...