The future of farming after Britain leaves the EU is likely to see an end to direct subsidies to farmers, many of whom are calling instead for measures to support a profitable market.

“Most farmers do not want to have a subsidy,” said Minette Batters, deputy president of the National Farmers’ Union, a Wiltshire beef farmer and Brexit supporter.

“But the market has got to function — if the market delivers, life is going to be much better. And we have got to have a new ambition for this country that has food security at the heart of it.”

Farmers received £2.1bn in direct subsidies and £600m in rural development payments through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) last year.

The direct payments made up 55 per cent of farmers’ incomes last year and are calculated on a flat rate per acre, conditional on fulfilling environmental obligations.

The NFU will this week start consulting its 55,000 members for their views on a post-Brexit agricultural policy, based around the issues of trade, access to labour, rural development and regulation.

Meanwhile, the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has called for the end of direct subsidies, adding that the payments sometimes go to landlords, rather than tenant farmers.

But the distinction between subsidy and support is a fine one: the association wants the government to keep the £3bn that the sector currently receives through the CAP but to invest it instead in schemes to boost farmers’ profitability.

Stephen Wyrill, TFA chairman, said the government should also require public food procurement policies to favour homegrown food and to investigate the power of supermarket chains that are often blamed by farmers for squeezing their incomes.

August 9 is the date this year that the UK’s domestically produced food supply for the year runs out. The UK relies on homegrown produce for 60 per cent of its food needs, down from 78 per cent at its 1984 peak.

But while people often say they would prefer to buy British produce, they can be swayed by cheaper imported products, such as strawberries and lamb.

Some farmers are calling for more protectionism, including tariffs, while others favour softer measures such as improved labelling and educating children about farming and the countryside from a young age.

Mr Wyrill said he was not opposed to tariffs but added: “What we do not want is for agriculture to be used as bait to develop export markets in non-farming areas,” such as financial services.

Most farmers want unfettered access to the EU, which was the destination last year for 63 per cent of the UK’s agri-food exports and the source of 70 per cent of its food imports.

They also want the government to push more strongly for food exports in countries outside the EU. The Country Land and Business Association said last week that agriculture had been ignored in the Department for International Trade’s new ministerial line-up.

“It is notoriously difficult to establish open trade deals for farming products,” said Helen Woolley, CLA director-general. “It is seriously alarming that no government minister has been given specific responsibility to deliver it. We expect the Department for International Trade to start working together with us straight away and this is a terrible start. “

George Eustice, the pro-Brexit farming minister, said the government would consult with farmers over time over how much funding is required for the industry.

But he has suggested the government could cut its investment in agriculture to £2bn, instead of £3bn, because of budget savings from exiting the EU.

He has also said, before the referendum, that the CAP’s land-based payments system should be replaced with schemes that set objectives such as food security; investment in science and technology to improve productivity and agri-environment schemes to enhance the environment.

To help farmers cope with weather-related disasters, he suggested a government-backed insurance scheme and a futures market to protect farmers against volatile commodity markets, though some farmers think the latter is impractical.

Changing the land-based payments system could encourage elderly farmers to retire, given that the median age of a UK farmer is 59 years.

Richard Bower, a 30-year-old fourth-generation farmer who manages his father’s 750-acre cereal and beef cattle farm in Staffordshire, West Midlands, said: “There’s no incentive to pass on farms to a younger generation.”

Mr Bower, who is chairman of the NFU’s Next Generation Policy Forum, did not vote for Brexit but said that, now the vote was over, “We’ve got to have a positive outlook and pull together. Maybe us younger farmers will see subsidies disappear in our lifetime, so let’s use them now to future-proof our businesses.

“Sometimes, when your back’s against the wall, that’s when the best ideas come out.”