Defra Secretary Theresa Villiers has admitted ‘engaging’ with Number 10 on the last-minute decision to stop the Derbyshire badger cull.

The new Agriculture Bill due to be introduced to Parliament this month will include a legal requirement for the Government to carry out regular food security audits.

Farmers without formal qualifications could be excluded from accessing Government funding or even tenancies over the next two or three years, a prominent peer has warned.

The NFU has called for farmers in England to keep at least 30 per cent of their direct payments after Brexit.

The NFU has called for the new Agriculture Bill, which will be reintroduced to Parliament this month, to set up a commission to protect food standards in trade deals.

A show-of-hands poll carried out at Oxford Farming Conference revealed there was not a single audience member who trusted the Government to protect food production standards in trade deals.

Though the average price of bare agricultural land in England and Wales has fallen by roughly one per cent over the past year, prices are still 40 per cent higher than they were 10 years ago.

Britain’s next generation of farmers are overwhelmingly positive about how the industry will fare in the 2020s, exclusive Farmers Guardian research has revealed.

The Welsh Conservatives have set out plans to split the Environment and Rural Affairs Department if they win power at the next Assembly election in May 2021.

The Tenant Farmers’ Association (TFA) has accused ex-Defra adviser Professor Sir Ian Boyd of lying, after he claimed livestock farmers were being paid by the Government to damage the environment.