The latest CAP information has also been published by the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), showing payments to farmers across all four UK regions.

Northern Ireland (NI) has the highest entitlement rates per ha, but the smallest farm sizes, meaning that payment rates per farm are much lower than in Britain.

Across all 24,122 NI claimants, the average direct payment comes to £12,006 (€13,490) per farm.

The top claimant is the college farm operated by CAFRE, which includes a dairy and beef unit at Greenmount, and a 2,500-acre hill farm between Antrim and Ballymena in Co Antrim. In total, CAFRE received direct payments of £225,468 (€253,333).

Four other businesses in NI received payments over £200,000 (€224,719). However, there are only 88 farmers who claimed more than £100,000 (€112,359), and the majority of farmers (85%) get payments below £20,000 (€22,471).

It is a different picture in England and Scotland, where the scale of farming operations is much greater and, as a result, payments are significantly higher.

The top claimant across the UK is Beeswax Dyson Farming Ltd, owned by vacuum cleaner inventor James Dyson, with a payment of £2.96m (€3.3m).

The average direct payment to Scottish farms is £26,808 (€30,121), and in England it is £21,938 (€24,649). However, Wales has a farm structure closer to Ireland, and average direct payments of £15,252 (€17,137).