Countryside leaders in East Anglia want election manifesto pledges to raise the next government's farming budget to £4bn.

Demands for political parties to ramp up their agricultural spending commitments are gaining momentum as the General Election campaign gathers pace.

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) says more money is needed to fund the new environmental land management (ELM) payment schemes being introduced to replace the former EU subsidy regime being phased out after Brexit.

The new system of nature incentives rewards farmers for actions to protect wildlife, create habitats and improve soil health.

But the CLA says the government’s budget must be raised from its current level of £2.4bn a year, where it has remained since before Brexit, despite high inflation in recent years.

This echoes a message from the National Farmers' Union (NFU) earlier this year, after modelling by the Andersons Centre indicated that an annual budget of £4bn would be needed to meet the government’s agricultural ambitions for 2025-2030.

Mark Riches, the CLA's acting regional director for the East of England, said the region should be "immensely proud" of its farmers' food production, animal welfare and environmental standards - but land use is "more than farming alone".

"The choices made by farmers and land managers deliver important government commitments on food and energy security, net zero, nature recovery, water and air quality, and the health and well-being of local communities," he said.

"Increasingly, farming and the environment are considered two sides of the same coin – and it is on that basis that agricultural policy is being redesigned. The ‘public money for public goods’ model has extraordinary potential to deliver for the farm, the environment, the economy, and the taxpayer.

“The transition towards it, however, requires farmers to have confidence in government processes – specifically that the budget will be sufficient, that payments will be made on time, and that the issuing of annual standards is published promptly.

"We believe there must be an increased agricultural budget of at least £4bn a year to invest in a world-class agriculture policy and help farmers deliver meaningful improvements to the environment.

“Farmers need to have confidence that a future government - whichever party is successful at the election - will back their ambitions for food production and nature for the long-term, in the face of rising costs and inflationary pressures."