OKEHAMPTON Agricultural Show is a rare chance for farmers to put their worries behind them and celebrate all that is good about their industry but this year even that is in doubt.

A decision will be made in the next month whether the 97th show in August will still go-ahead or be scaled down.

Show chairman Bill Voaden said the committee was facing the prospect of holding a show without sheep or cattle, goats or pigs.

The event attracts some of the West Country's top livestock exhibitors and usually has around 500 sheep entries and 200 cattle.

'Things are not looking very good,' said Mr Voaden. 'Foot and mouth is going to put the whole showing season at risk.

'Okehampton Show is one day when town meets country. Farmers meet up with old friends and a lot of business is done.'

Mr Voaden said the agricultural show was a shop window for farmers and associated industries and it was a chance for businesses to say 'thank you' to the public for their patronage year after year.

'It would be a real shame if we had to cancel the show but at the moment there are other things to worry about like farmers' livelihoods,' said Mr Voaden.

Secretary of the sheep section David Heard, a sheep farmer from Meldon, said exhibitors to the show travelled from as far afield as Leicester and Bristol.

'Okehampton Show is a very important occasion and people who have moved away come back year after year to meet up with old friends,' she said.

'It's a great social event and frankly any social occasion would be a great thing for farmers at this time but everybody is afraid to do anything or go anywhere.'

Mr Heard, 39, said he had never seen anything like this foot and mouth crisis before and he felt desperately sorry for the farmers who had it.

'This is no fault of anybody's — nobody is to blame,' he said. 'It's a terrible thing and it has got to the stage where we are all paranoid about getting foot and mouth.

'I did not have it this morning but I could this afternoon — when I see a flock of starlings over head I wonder where they have been.'