"I'm confident the crisis will ease," says Richard Wear, who has 60 beef cattle on his farm near Bristol.

"It will be very slow. But we can see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Mr Wear is one of the thousands at this year's Smithfield Show in London, the farming industry's winter exhibition and pre-Christmas party rolled into one.

It used to be an annual event, but since 1994 it has been held only every other year.

Mr Wear has been coming to Smithfield for almost 40 years. "Today is as lively as the first day always is," he says.

"The numbers of visitors and of animals are the same. Nick Brown, the Agriculture Minister, gave us all a boost with his aid package."

"This week our problems are on the back burner."

Not everyone is as buoyant as that, though. Sheep farmers in particular sound a more sombre note.

Sowing the seeds of hope

Hugh Veitch has 800 ewes in Northumberland and Berwickshire. "Everyone is trying to be very positive this year," he says.

"We've been looking forward to Smithfield, and we're trying to put a brave face on things."

The other day Mr Veitch sold 41 eight-month-old lambs for �26 each. A year ago they would have brought him �36 a head.

He says: "For the beef men things are improving slowly. But if you're in sheep it's desperate."

'We've seen the worst'

John Campbell has 1100 ewes on his farm near Alnwick, close to the Northumberland coast.

"There's not the same feeling at Smithfield," says Mr Campbell. "The stuffing's been knocked out of us.

"This used to be a busman's holiday, but now it's one of the first things you cut out.

"In the old days, we'd all go off to the pub in the evening. Now we bring our own drink to the show."

Des Lambert is deputy principal of Plumpton Agricultural College in East Sussex, and a pig farmer of many years' standing.

Bad harvest: Sales of farm machinery are down

"We need to make 92p a kilo to break even," he says. "Last week we were getting 72p. And pig farmers have never had any EU subsidies.

"Times are very difficult just now. There are fewer animals here than usual - but still plenty of shiny new machinery."

Hedley Cooper is the commercial director of New Holland UK, which makes agricultural machinery.

"We're busier than we expected, and many farmers seem in a fairly positive frame of mind," Mr Cooper says.

"I think we've seen the worst. The siege mentality is beginning to lift, and the optimism is beginning to return."

His company's own sales of tractors and other equipment are about 35% down on last year, and Mr Cooper expects this year will be much the same.

"Optimism doesn't feed quickly into the machinery trade," he says. "We shed 10% of our workers last year, and there could be more to go.

"But in a year from now I think we shall be able to say we're on the way back up."