A leading land reform expert has launched a withering attack on the SNP's record in office.

Until recently Professor Jim Hunter had been advising Scottish ministers on future action on land reform.

In an extraordinary broadside, the Highland historian said six years under the SNP had left Scotland stuck with the "most concentrated, most inequitable, most unreformed and most undemocratic land ownership system in the entire developed world".

Mr Hunter, who is sympathetic to independence, stood down as vice-chairman of the Land Reform Review Group (LRRG) in April for personal reasons. But, when asked about speculation the group is to be restructured, Mr Hunter criticised the group's interim report, and said the Government had to be involved directly in its work.

There should be a commitment to legislation in 2014/15 on community land ownership, he said, adding that the process of getting land into community hands needed to be simpler.

Ministers had to get serious about giving tenant farmers a right to buy their farms, he said. "Danish farmers got a right to buy more than 200 years ago. How much longer are Scottish tenant farmers to be denied a similar right?"

Mr Hunter added: "There's precious little that's socially just about a Scotland where fewer than 1000 people own more than half the country and where tenant farmers, as the LRRG has discovered, are frightened to speak out for fear of repercussions from their lairds."

A Scottish Government spokesman said it was committed to land reform. He said: "We will also hold a review of agricultural tenancies, and have provided a £6 million Scottish Land Fund for 2012/15 to help communities buy their land.

"That support for local groups looking to exercise their right to buy has flourished under this administration, with a total of 127 community bodies formed under existing land reform legislation since May 2007 and all applications where a right to buy has been triggered have been approved."