In a move designed to help British food producers plan for Brexit, the Environment Secretary is to indicate his support for the Government guaranteeing the payments at their present level until 2024.

He will say the time is needed to avoid a sudden shock when the country quits the "unjust" Brussels Common Agricultural Policy.

"I want to give farmers and land managers time and tools to adapt to the future so we can avoid a precipitate cliff edge but also prepare properly for the changes which are coming," the Tory Cabinet minister will say.

And in a swipe at the widely-criticised Brussels farming payments system, he will add: "We can, and must, do better."

Mr Gove, who helped lead the Leave campaign in the run up to the 2016 EU referendum, will use a keynote speech today at the Oxford Farming Conference to set out his latest thinking on how the agricultural sector will change after the break with Brussels due in March 2019.

He will confirm his desire to scrap the "fundamentally flawed" EU system of paying lavish handouts to wealthy landowners to maintain outdated farming practises. 

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

“It give the most from the public purse to those who have the most private wealth," he is expected to say.

Instead, the Environment Secretary will call for a new system of payments based on protecting and improving the countryside.

Farmers should expect to paid for planting woodlands, providing new wildlife habitats, improving water quality and returning previously cultivated land to wildflower meadows or other natural states, he is to say.

But he will signal his intention to press the Treasury to guarantee the current level of payments for two years longer than the 2022 deadline set by Chancellor Philip Hammond.

Mr Gove will tell the conference that Brexit will mean "we can once more decide how we shape and change and how we meet the challenges ahead". 

He will say: "It means we don’t need any longer to follow the path dictated by the Common Agricultural Policy.

"We can have our own - national - food policy, our own agriculture policy, our own environment policies, our own economic policies, shaped by our own interests."

The devout Brexiteer will condemn the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as a relic from another age.

"The CAP was designed, like so many aspects of the EU, for another world, the post-war period when memories of food shortages were hauntingly powerful and the desire to support a particular model of land use was wrapped up with ideas of a stable countryside that seemed reassuringly attractive after the trauma of industrial-scale conflict," Mr Gove is expected to say.

"Of course, the CAP has evolved, and indeed improved, over time. 

“But it is still a fundamentally flawed design." 

He will add: "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 will say that the current Basic Payment Scheme should be replaced after a post-Brexit transition period with "a system of public money for public goods".

Sources close to the Cabinet minister yesterday indicated he envisaged a transition period of five years for farmers from the date of the UK's scheduled exit from the EU in March 2019.

He is expected to say: "The principal public good we will invest in is environmental enhancement.

"In thinking about how better to support farmers in the work of environmental protection and enhancement it’s critical - as everyone in this room but not everyone outside appreciates - to recognise that there is no inherent tension between productive farming and care for the natural world.

"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.

"We are committed to ensuring we leave the environment in a better condition than we found it.  

“And leaving the European Union allows us to deliver the policies required to achieve that - to deliver a Green Brexit.

"But vital as investment in our environment is, it is not the only public good I think we should invest in - I believe we should also invest in technology and skills alongside infrastructure, public access and rural resilience."

Mr Gove will say his drive for shaking up the payment system will "develop a truly sustainable future for our countryside".