£1m EU jackpot for Scots farmer

But 15,735 of Scotland's 21,047 farmers and crofters received less than 30,000, and 10,682 of those received less than 10,000 from Scotland's 484 million share of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget.

Currently, all recipients of farm subsidy, from 1 million to 10, remain anonymous, but within the next few days businesses who benefit from the new CAP single farm payment for 2005 will be identified by name and parish.

CAP subsidies have been consistently criticised, not least by organisations such as Oxfam and WWF, for feather-bedding large-scale farmers and estate owners while distorting world trade and food prices and giving small-scale farmers and crofters a raw deal.

Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, argued that the 30 billion a year CAP should be scrapped completely during his attempts last autumn to renegotiate Britain's EU budget rebate.

But John Kinnaird, NFU Scotland's president, said that individual identification was not a problem.

"We should be proud of our industry and the value for money we deliver in return for public funding," he said. "All single farm payments will be in the public domain from now on, and rightly so.

"We must not be driven into feeling defensive about what we do as an industry purely because of a few simplistic headlines and soundbite attacks.

"Total subsidy to Scotland's family farms represents only 2 per cent of Scottish Executive expenditure. Farms, big or small, have a tremendous story to tell and the industry cannot afford to be shy in letting people know about it."

Mr Kinnaird farms 600 acres in East Lothian with his son and one member of staff. He grows 300 acres of cereals, runs 100 suckler cows to produce beef calves and has a flock of 100 breeding ewes.

The partnership's single farm payment for 2005 will be about 55,000. But the top-line figure hides a massive change in the CAP from January 2005, he said.

Until then, a farm or croft subsidy was directly related to production of beef, sheep, grain, oilseed or land taken out of production (set-aside). There are no, or very limited, subsidies for milk, potatoes, vegetables, pigs or poultry.

Last year, a new system was introduced. Instead of a range of subsidies paid at different times of the year, farmers now get one single farm payment annually as long as they meet good husbandry and environmental care standards.

But from that single payment there are now deductions. Mr Kinnaird's 55,000 is subject to a 6.5 per cent modulation tax. This will be used for general rural development, conservation and environment protection and will increase over the next few years to 10 per cent.

There will also be a deduction of 6 to 8 per cent for a national reserve fund that is being used, among other things, to help new entrants to farming.

Until this year, the Executive has insisted that individual subsidy payments were subject to the Data Protection Act, even though the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published retrospective individual figures for England and Wales.

A spokesman for the Executive said yesterday: "Previously there was no advice to farmers that details of their subsidy might be published."