The Scottish Conservatives have called for a full and independent inquiry into delays to European Union (EU) support payments for farmers.
Leader Ruth Davidson branded the Scottish Government's handling of the situation "shambolic" in advance of a Holyrood debate on the issue on Wednesday.
The Tories have tabled a motion stating farmers across the country have "lost trust" in the ability of Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead to deliver the funding before the end of the financial year.
NFU Scotland will meet with Mr Lochhead and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon later on Tuesday to discuss what it describes as the "deepening cash crisis" facing farmers and crofters, with a protest due to take place outside the Scottish Parliament on Thursday.
The payments have been affected by major issues with the £178 million IT system set up to administer the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Ms Davidson criticised Mr Lochhead for using a radio interview to accuse opponents of "throwing bricks" over the issue.
She said: "The SNP's handling of this situation is becoming more and more shambolic.
"This is why we need a full, independent inquiry into this matter, to find out exactly what's gone wrong and to ensure nothing like this happens again.
"Because of an IT system the Scottish Government created, nearly half of our farmers are waiting for hundreds of millions of pounds in payments that were supposed to start arriving in accounts three months ago.
"That is a scandal - but all Richard Lochhead can do is accuse people with legitimate concerns of 'throwing bricks'.
"His response is shameful and completely fails to acknowledge the crisis affecting rural Scotland of his own making."
Earlier, Mr Lochhead told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that 56% of the 18,137 eligible claims for basic payments under the scheme had now been paid.
He said: "I'd much rather that figure was much higher.
"The system is working, it's just far too slow, particularly in dealing with the more complex applications."
Mr Lochhead said the Scottish Government was looking at other options to help those who did not receive their payments by the end of March.
He added: "I have to remind the industry, and indeed parliament, and many of the political opponents out there who are throwing bricks at us at the moment, that the other political parties in the Parliament, of course, don't want these direct payments to continue. They actually argued for them to be scrapped."
SNP MSP Angus MacDonald said: "It is quite spectacular hypocrisy from the Tories to try and score political points over farm support - when their own farming minister is set on seeing the support abolished in its entirety by dragging Scotland out of the EU.
"The truth is that the Tory government has refused to give our farming communities any information about the future of the support payments they'll receive if we're out of Europe - the Tories in Scotland should come clean on their own farming minister's plans."
Sarah Boyack, Scottish Labour's spokeswoman for environmental justice, said: "This is a real scandal, affecting real people and the minister just wrings his hands and complains that it is all very complicated.
"I've already asked him what representations he has made to Europe to speed things up and received no reply. Of equal importance is what the position is likely to be next year?
"The First Minister has been forced to step in to support her beleaguered Minister. She asked the people of Scotland to judge her government on their record.
"I hope they do because their record on the issue of farm payments is one of calamity, chaos and complacency."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article