Michael Gove is set to U-turn and tell farmers they can expect to keep £10bn worth of subsidies in the five years following Brexit in a speech at the Oxford Farming Conference later today.

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The Environment Secretary will promise to retain the same "basic payment" per acre of land that farmers currently receive under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy until 2024.

Mr Gove will tell farmers that the move will give them the "time and tools to adapt", although he will reiterate his view that the CAP itself is "perverse" and "fundamentally flawed".

In return he will insist farmers do more to protect the environment and open up the countryside to the general public.

The announcement is a victory for the National Farmers' Union, which has been lobbying the Government to offer its members certainty over the future of subsidies. 

The Tory manifesto had promised to retain the same cash payments farmers currently receive until 2022, but had not committed to matching individual payments to farmers.

Two thirds of the £3bn that farmers get annually from the CAP comes from the basic payments scheme, while overall subsidies account for half of the average farm income.

Speaking at the Oxford Farmers Conference, Mr Gove will argue that the CAP system creates a series of disincentives that damages British agricultural production and the environment.

"Paying landowners for the amount of agricultural land they have is unjust, inefficient and drives perverse outcomes," he will say.

"It gives the most from the public purse to those who have the most private wealth. It bids up the price of land, distorting the market, creating a barrier to entry for innovative new farmers and entrenching lower productivity.

"Indeed, perversely, it rewards farmers for sticking to methods of production that are resource-inefficient and also incentivises an approach to environmental stewardship which is all about mathematically precise field margins and not ecologically healthy landscapes."

Mr Gove's plans also include building "natural capital" - the value nature provides to society - into land management in order to build a sustainable future for the countryside.

He will say: "Building on previous countryside stewardship and agri-environment schemes, we will design a scheme accessible to almost any land owner or manager who wishes to enhance the natural environment by planting woodland, providing new habitats for wildlife, increasing biodiversity, contributing to improved water quality and returning cultivated land to wildflower meadows or other more natural states.

"We will also make additional money available for those who wish to collaborate to secure environmental improvements collectively at landscape scale.

"Enhancing our natural environment is a vital mission for this Government."

Mr Gove’s speech comes as the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology, a cross-party group of MPs and peers, warned trade deals after Brexit could pose the "biggest peacetime threat" to the UK's food security.

The Government must ensure future trade deals protect British farmers by prohibiting imports of food produced with lower welfare or environmental standards, according to the group.

The prospect of deals with countries including the US have raised concerns over lower standard food, such as chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef, entering the UK and making it hard for farmers to compete with the cheaper imports.

And free trade deals could lead to direct foreign investment, which could encourage farmers to adopt more intensive farming systems that move the UK away from sustainable ways of producing food and managing land.

"There are serious concerns that if negotiators don't value farmers enough and build poorly managed trade deals that reflect this - particularly a US-UK deal - it could trigger a race to the bottom in terms of standards and ability of our own farmers to compete,” the group's chairwoman, Labour MP Kerry McCarthy, said.

A Defra spokesman said: "We are committed to securing the best possible trade deal when we leave the EU - one which includes a comprehensive free trade deal with the European Union and, in due course, the chance to negotiate new free trade agreements with other countries."