1. Agricultural subsidies almost always causing farming to become more intensive than it would otherwise be. The effects of this on the environment may be positive (e.g. resisting abandonment), negative (e.g. overstocking) or neutral (e.g. on fertile lowland grasslands, which would still be farmed intensively with or without support).2. The combined effects of substantial payments and quota limits make the farming systems very resistant to change, creating a considerable obstacle to farmers adopting any kind of environmental measures which would reduce their receipts from price support or headage payments.