The goal of this paper is to provide information about the progress, over the last 10 years, of mathematical programming for analysis of the behaviour of farm producers under the European Union Common Agricultural Policy. We show in detail the evolution of mathematical programming and how this methodology can be applied at different levels (regions or sectors) for the main CAP policies. The evolution of mathematical programming is shown by the emergence of a new group of supply and equilibrium models, "Positive Mathematical Programming" (PMP) and "Symmetric Positive Equilibrium Problems". (SPEP) SPEP was developed in order to solve problems posed by the lack of data and the need for methodologies to represent different farm typologies in different environments. This paper thus analyses the main contributions to current developments in mathematical programming, different models used in Europe and how the main CAP tools are included in these models