 The socialist oriented five-year plans of the 1950s and 1960s aggressively promoted rural mechanisation via joint ventures and tie-ups between local industrialists and international tractor manufacturers.Despite these efforts, the first three decades after independence local production of 4-wheel tractors grew slowly.By the late 1980s tractor production was nearly 140,000 units per year, and a prevalence rate of less than 2 per 1,000 farmers.