The government has been told farmers are 'running out of patience' due to 'unacceptable' delays to the rollout of the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes.
The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) made the damning comments during the group's annual Rural Business Conference.
It warned that the lack of clarity on post-Brexit payment rates was akin to buying “something from the shop without knowing the price."
With Defra Secretary Dr Thérèse Coffey in attendance, the CLA said that farmer confidence in the scheme’s success was nearly at zero.
There had been mounting speculation that Defra was planning on significantly changing or dropping the ELMS, rumours that the department recently denied.
The post-Brexit system of support is made up of three payment schemes - the sustainable farming incentive (SFI), local nature recovery and landscape recovery.
Under these, farmers will receive payment for taking actions which generate environmental benefits, such as improving grasslands or soils.
But speaking at the Rural Business Conference, CLA president Mark Tufnell said that confidence within the farming industry was close to "disappearing forever".
Mr Tufnell said: “There is nothing Conservative about holding rural businesses back. There is nothing Conservative about letting rural communities fail.”
The CLA’s president also criticised the government’s track record in supporting rural businesses across the country, pointing towards a planning regime that seems “designed to hold the rural economy back.”
He also put a spotlight on the lack of affordable housing driving away young people, and infrastructure and connectivity preventing many from even “operating in the 21st century”.
Mr Tufnell called on the government to match the ambitions of rural firms, adding that 12 years since the Conservatives came to power, the policy landscape had "in some cases got worse".
The speech follows a recent survey published earlier this year by the rural group which shone a light on the cracks in the ‘blue wall’.
The opinion poll of the five most rural counties in England put the Conservatives just two points ahead of Labour, indicating a 7.5% swing from the 2019 general election.
The by-elections in Tiverton and Honiton were seen by many as a warning shots fired by rural voters.
