Accra, Oct. 11, 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.