Boris Johnson has slashed plans to reclaim the country as the government withdraws from the green agenda to focus on the cost-of-living crisis.
Ministers last year announced a post-Brexit plan that would pay farmers up to £ 800 million a year, a third of the agricultural budget, to transform farmland into nature-rich forests, coastal wetlands, peat bogs and meadows of wildflowers.
But the fund, called the Landscape Recovery Scheme, has been quietly reduced to just £ 50 million in three years, less than 1 per cent of the budget.
The policy change is a major victory for the agricultural lobby, which had opposed diverting money from food production.
Government experts say the conflict in Ukraine has increased the need to channel more support