ENVIRONMENT minister Peter Sirett has admitted the States could do more to help local farmers.

It follows Commerce and Employment’s suggestion that farmers from outside the island might be needed to keep the local industry alive and local farmers’ subsequent dismissal of that as ludicrous because so little was being done to help them.

Deputy Sirett (pictured) sympathised with young local farmers’ calls for government help. ‘The States does little to support farming and I recognise that the loss of farming and the accompanying guardianship of the countryside is an issue that the States must address,’ he said.

Deputy Sirett said the Environmental Plan prepared by a group he chaired, which was approved by the States, recognised the need to protect farming heritage.

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