Vice President Mahama Calls For Faith In SADA As He Inaugurates 100 Tractors In Tamale

The Vice President John Dramani Mahama is in Tamale where he has inaugurated 100 tractors for SADA. Vice President John Mahama called on Ghanaians to have faith in SADA and likened SADA to the growth of a tree, and said SADA will work to improve the lives of the people in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions. Meanwhile, the Northern Regional Minister, Moses Bukari Mabengba has been telling Radio Ghana that farmers in the region are very happy with provision of tractors by SADA. He said the tractors will go a long way to enhance mechanised agriculture. He said the Northern region has so far benefited tremendously from SADA. In a related development, the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), on Monday, held a special meeting with agricultural service providers and other stakeholders to strategise for the 2012 farming season to improve production. Alhaji Gilbert Seidu Iddi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SADA told the meeting that there was a paradigm shift in the agricultural implementation strategy for 2012, focused on market- led-out grower schemes. This would be spearheaded by service providers in supply, technology transfer, processing and marketing. He said the meeting would afford stakeholders including non- governmental organisations, development partners and civil society organisations, the opportunity to strategise and spread their activities for the maximum benefit of the people. The CEO said the meeting would help reduce overlapping and duplication of activities and ensure equity. �The present situation where we have the concentration of so many similar activities in one area while other areas lack those same activities do not ensure accelerated development,� he explained. He noted that most of the activities of many NGOs were concentrated at one area, thus creating a developmental gap. Dr Ayesha Hakeem, Managing Director of African Connections Ghana Limited, an NGO said she was at the meeting to train service providers to enable them send the right input to farmers. She said the training would also enable the service providers to send their input to farmers at the right time while teaching them how to recover credit advanced to them. GBC/GNA