Nurturing Opportunities: Assessing the Challenges and Engagement of Young Persons With Disabilities in Ghana's Agribusiness Sector.
Dan F Acquaye, Juliana Asante-Dartey, Abraham Sarfo and 4 others
PMID 42463471WHAT IT FOUND
In Ghana, only 28 of 53 employed young people with disabilities work in agribusiness.
The main barriers are structural. Farms are physically inaccessible, credit is denied, training excludes them, and stigma persists. This is an environmental and policy problem, not a patient problem.
Key findings
01Of 169 young people with disabilities surveyed in Ghana, 31.4% were currently employed, and among those 53 employed, 28 (52.8%) worked in agribusiness.
02Seven barriers to agribusiness engagement were identified: physically inaccessible farms, stigma and discrimination, no land access, no credit, no inclusive training, limited farming knowledge, and personal disinterest.
03The authors conclude that exclusion stems from structural and institutional failures rather than individual incapacity, and that inclusion requires accessible credit, inclusive extension services, adaptive training, and equitable land access.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Snowball sampling means the most socially isolated young people with disabilities—who may face the greatest barriers—were likely underrepresented. The sample of 169 is small for a national-level claim, and the authors themselves call for larger, nationally representative studies. The design is cross-sectional: it captures a single point in time and cannot show whether engagement changes with age or over the life course. Language and communication challenges may have affected interpretation despite the use of interpreters and trained enumerators. Social desirability bias may have influenced responses, particularly in conversations about stigma or dependence. Variations in enumerator experience across 12 districts and three ecological zones may have introduced inconsistencies in data collection. The study is part of a broader programme (HAPPY) needs-assessment, which may have shaped the questions asked, though the authors state they retained analytical independence.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest and state that no funding was received for the manuscript. The study was conducted as part of a broader needs-assessment under the HAPPY programme, but the authors note it retained analytical independence for academic reporting.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 52.8% engagement figure as the share of all young people with disabilities in agribusiness. It applies only to the 53 who were already employed, and only 31.4% of the 169 surveyed were employed at all, so the overall engagement rate out of the full sample is considerably lower.