I just wonder if this will be the last CAP reform we see.
It might be, on the basis that each successive reform since 1990 has been more complicated than the last and that this current reform is becoming a labyrinth from which there is no obvious exit.
Coming up with a 2020 reform more mind-blowingly incomprehensible than this one will take a bit of doing and might not be seen as worth the effort.
To make it worse Jeremy Moody, adviser to the Scottish Agricultural Arbiters and Valuers Association, made the sharp observation this week that the current debacle was not actually a reform it was just added layers of complexity on top of the old one.
Of course he has been pointing out for months now that Scotland is so far behind the curve on its plans for CAP implementation that the situation looks far worse north of the border than it need be.
Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead, for his part, continuously calls foul, blaming Defra for the poor hand he has been dealt.
He simply can’t access enough money to do what he wants, and there must be a degree of sympathy for him on that.
The allocation of the so-called internal convergence funds back in November was a cruel blow for Scotland. Justifiably, all of the UK’s £190 million allocation could have come to Scotland but instead it was spread over the four UK administrations.
If I was a Better Together activist I would be spitting mad with Defra Secretary Owen Paterson for making a decision that will haunt the referendum campaign right up until September 18.
My suspicion is that the fateful decision was made for all the wrong reasons.
Earlier in that November week the announcement had been made that shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde would be saved at the expense of jobs in Portsmouth.
The outcry in the south was immense English jobs had been sacrificed to keep the rebellious Scots on board.
If Defra had taken the brave decision to send £190m north at the end of the same week the uproar would have been immense.
That is the problem, of course. As others, including Maimie Paterson in these pages on Saturday, have pointed out, we are in the middle of a political melee which has far more to do with the referendum than it does with CAP reform.
But back to my central premise on the role of the CAP.
It has certainly lost its way since the 1960s, when it was all to do with securing food supply in Europe and making sure that rural society was robust and sustainable.
These were good aims, and only really became derailed as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) gained traction.
Directly supporting agriculture became a taboo because it was seen as non-competitive. Maybe it was, but what has happened to the WTO over the last 15 years? It first stalled and now it has atrophied.
The big players on the world stage have all but given up on it and instead are negotiating bilateral trade agreements as quickly as they can.
The EU itself is in on the act, with a hugely significant trade treaty with Canada soon to be enacted.
There will be others with South American countries and even the mighty US.
Why then are we battering our heads against the brick wall of an outflanked WTO policy?
Would it not be more realistic for the incoming EU Farm Commissioner, whoever he or she may be, to acknowledge that tying European farming up in knots is making it very uncompetitive.
Maybe there will be a realisation that instead of trying to outlaw payments coupled to production, it would actually be a good idea to build the whole policy around it.
The Arable Area Aid scheme worked well enough up until 2005, and it was a coupled payment. So were all the various cattle and sheep headage payments. There was little talk then of falling livestock numbers.
Of course it is a case of being careful what we wish for.
These were days of surplus and low prices from time to time. Meat processors, instead of scrabbling for supplies, were able to pick and choose.
It was a simpler life, though, and if there is to be another CAP reform it is going to have to embrace some of these more straightforward principles.
Farming life cannot be allowed to become any more complicated than it is now.