Cocoa farmers are to be supplied with 100,000 spraying machines this year at highly subsidized price.

It is an initiative by Desert Lion International (DLI), a Ghanaian company that deals in agricultural implements, and the goal is to support efforts at improving crop yield.

Mr. Kwame Tweneboah Koduah, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said the machines had been certified by the Cocoa Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and received the approval of the COCOBOD.

He broke the news at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between DLI and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi.

The pact is to help build the capacity of the company to manufacture vital agricultural inputs to increase agricultural production.

It is currently engaged in the assembling of cocoa spraying machines and the manufacture of insecticides.

The company has set its sights on acquiring the competence and capacity to manufacture the spraying machines locally in the next five years.

Professor William Otoo Ellis, Vice Chancellor of the University, initialed the agreement for the institution, while Mr. Koduah, penned for his company.

Mr. Koduah spoke of plans to establish an international training and assembling centre at Adadientem in the Ejisu-Juaben to provide hands-on training to undergraduate and graduate students.

Prof. Ellis said as a technology-based universities, KNUST would lead efforts to develop modern techniques for production of agricultural implements.