Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Friday appealed to tractor manufacturers to provide after sales services in order to attract more Ghanaian farmers to their products.
"Ghana is also moving from the position of a net importer into a net exporter and will therefore prefer tractor companies that can provide more
than the four-bladed ploughs to facilitate their commercial ventures."
Vice President Mahama made the call when a delegation from John Deere Limited, an American Tractor Manufacturing Company, paid a courtesy call on him to announce their return to Ghana after suspending their services for so many years.
He said that farmers face perennial problems regarding the use of tractors and high cost of spare parts and called on the company to make
their spare parts and after sales available to facilitate the activities of farmers.
The Vice President said Ghana had a lot of fallow and arable land that was underutilized due to inadequate machinery and called on them to come out with tractors that could stand the test of time.
"Most farmers in those days had problems with your tractors because either your parts were quite expensive or they were unavailable and I will
implore you to provide them with technical service to make them acquire full benefit of your products."
Mr. David Everitt, President of the Company, promised to manufacture effective tractors that would meet their food production targets for
domestic consumption and export.
He gave the assurance that the company would provide technical and financial support to the government of Ghana in other fields rather than the
provision of tractors and after sales services.