Farmers are being forced to fortify their land with moats and anti-terror-style concrete blocks to combat organised crime gangs fly-tipping on an industrial scale.

Guy Smith, deputy president of the National Farmers’ Union, said Britain’s countryside risked being turned into a “Mad Max” landscape as farmers had to deploy barbed wire on gates and fences, flood lights, CCTV and concrete-reinforced gates to combat criminals leaving lorry loads of waste.

Defra figures last week revealed fly-tipping incidents where multiple loads of waste were dumped rose by 43 per cent in a year to more than 14,000.

Two of the worst saw 100 tons of commercial waste dumped on a Shropshire farm and 18 lorry loads deposited in the dead of night on another in Essex which cost the farmers £38,000 to clear.

The Environment Agency says waste is the new “narcotics” because of the profits crime gangs make from undercutting legitimate operators through illegal dumping and evading landfill taxes of up to £90 a ton.