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Veep calls for affordable tractors to boost farming
Accra, Oct. 11, Ghanadot/GNA – Vice President Alhaji Aliu
Mahama, at the weekend called on the Management of John
Deere International, a US-based tractor manufacturers, to
supply affordable tractors to the Ghanaian market to
facilitate government’s vision of modernising agriculture.
He said although Ghana was inundated by various brands of
tractors, what the country really needed were agricultural
equipment that would be within the reach of the average
farmer and able to boost mechanised farming.
Alhaji Mahama made the call when he interacted with a
six-member delegation of the company, led by its Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Robert Lane at the Osu
Castle.
He said although Ghana was insulated from the food crises
that hit the world, government was not complacent to boost
food production, in order to ensure national food security.
Alhaji Mahama noted that fighting hunger is central to
government’s agricultural policies.
Mr Lane said John Deere products had received high quality
ratings worldwide and this would be factored into their
operations in Ghana and also “meet the needs the Vice
President had well articulated”.
So far the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has procured 500
tractors from John Deere, to be supplied to farmer groups
and district assemblies as a way of bridging the
farmer-tractor gap.
At the moment, the ratio of farmers to tractors stands at
1,800 farmers to a tractor.
The country would need about 9,000 tractors to bridge the
farmer-tractor gap by 2015.
GNA
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