A Yorkshire Post investigation has revealed that much of the money involved was previously being spent on similar schemes and the rest is covered by money taken off the farmers.

Altogether, it is far from clear that rural economies will be better off than they were a year ago.

Following desperate messages of concern about the future of livestock farming, the Government recently announced that it was putting £3.9bn into the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE).

After deductions for national schemes, the Yorkshire/Humber region was said to be getting £9.5m a year to be spent by the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward.

But it now emerges that Yorkshire Forward had at least £6.6m for the last year from a number of schemes which have been consolidated into this one.

And the rest is more than covered by money knocked off Single Farm Payments, which consolidate most of the old agricultural subsidies into one.

As the Yorkshire Post reported at New Year, this year's payments to English farmers are down by much more than in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, because the Government wanted money for its other schemes.

Defra files reveal that its so-called "modulation" of the farmers' schemes will contribute £1,556m to the cost of the RDPE. That is 40 per cent of the total. And 40 per cent of the £9.5m a year which Yorkshire Forward is boasting about would be £3.8m.

In theory, farmers can reclaim some of the money they have lost by diversifying into new lines of business, qualifying for advanced environmental stewardship grants or perhaps growing crops for biofuels.

But Alastair Davy, a campaigner for the hill farmers of Yorkshire, says: "Most grants require matched funding from the applicants, which many of them cannot afford to raise, even if they have the time and the ideas.

"Rural development money tends to go into things like barn conversions and refurbishments of village halls and cemetery walls, which is all very nice but is not going to save the sheep industry."

David Curry, MP for Skipton and Ripon, a former Conservative minister of agriculture and current chairman of the milk industry body Dairy UK, said yesterday: "This looks like a classic example of repackaging and spin, which shows that the Government is still addicted to the bad old habits which have made people suspicious of all its announcements about money since it was first elected.

"Gordon Brown became Prime Minister promising a new era. But now he is in his bunker and his Ministers are playing the same old games.

"The fact is, they are running out of money."

Defra insists there is new money in its total package. But its records show a total of £1.6bn spent over the seven years of the England Rural Development Programme (2000-2006), from various strands of funding.

Changes to the farming support fund has added the same amount again and an allowance for inflation would make up most of the rest.

Mr Curry said: "I will be asking for the figures to show whether there is any new money at all behind the headline announcements."