More than 2,000 farmers are still waiting for delayed EU subsidy payments including one in five in the Highlands, SNP ministers have admitted.
The cash, which is distributed by the Scottish government, should have arrived by the end of June, according to a deadline set by Brussels.
However, a total of 2,228 businesses, more than one in ten, are still waiting for their cash. It is the second year in a row that farmers and other rural business owners have faced delays following problems with a new IT system, leading to warnings that many are facing a cashflow crisis.
Information lodged at Holyrood shows that farmers in the Highlands are far more likely to be affected than counterparts in other parts of the country. There are 906 applications, out of 5,108 in total from the Highlands, that are yet to be processed.
It means almost 18 per cent of businesses there are yet to be paid, compared with 12 per cent nationally and less than 4 per cent in Orkney.
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Mike Rumbles, rural affairs spokesman for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said the process for distributing cash had been a catastrophe.
He added: “It will come as no surprise to anybody familiar with this shambles that weeks after the payment deadline hundreds of farmers are still out of pocket.”