New Delhi, March 16, GNA - Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Monda= y signed an agreement with Mihindra Company Limited to supply one thousand tractors to farmers during this year's farming season.

The Company which has the capacity of manufacturing 250 tractors a day, also has a turnover capital of $7 billion dollars and is expected to supply the tractors before May this year.

In addition, the Company would set up a servicing and training plant to complement the existing one in Kumasi to serve farmers in the Northern and Southern sectors of the country.

Vice President Mahama said all these were to partly support the Government's Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) agenda to bridge the development gap between the North and the southern sector. He said the NDC's promise to ensure food sufficiency in the country was not lip-service, but a step that would empower farmers with the requisite equipment to increase food production for both domestic consumption and export.

"I am particularly happy that you are setting up plants in Kumasi and Tamale as it will not only serve the people of Ghana, but will also help ou= r brothers from neighbouring Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali and Cote d' Ivoire in the Sahel region."

He urged the Company to consider including tractor accessories such as ploughs, tillers, harrows, trolleys and other machinery that would facilitate production of crops in the country.

The Vice President promised that the government would guarantee for the farmers for them to pay for the tractors by installment for a number of years as a morale booster for them to push up food production in the country.

Vice President Mahama further called on them to consider taking up the irrigation project of the Accra plains which the World Bank had expressed the interest in sponsoring for rice production.

Mr. Mahesh Kaskar, Deputy General Manager of International Operations, who signed for the Company promised to supply the tractors to the Ghanaian farmers before the commencement of the farming season this year. He said the company had the capacity of producing 250 tractors a day and it was therefore not going to be any hindrance to their operations and deadlines. Mr. Kaskar said over the past 25 years, the Company supplied between 600,000 and 700,000 tractors to many countries in the world, adding "there is a high demand for our tractors and other equipment because of the qualit= y and we hope to replicate that in Ghana and Africa in general."