Empowering farmers with disabilities in Ghana: tailored agricultural extension advisory services

Abstract

The factors influencing the targeting of farmers with disabilities for agricultural extension advisory services by extension agents were examined using survey data in Ghana. A questionnaire hosted on Google form was adopted to gather data from 528 extension agents in all 16 administrative regions using simple random technique. Frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation, Kendal’s coefficient of concordance, and binary logistic regression were utilized to analyse the data using International Business Machine Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM-SPSS version 26). The study revealed that nine out of 10 extension agents target farmers with disabilities. Socio-demographic characteristics and institutional factors such as age, experience, level of education, specialisation in general agriculture, participation in needs assessment, and extension agents’ accessibility accounted for between 23.0 to 49.4% of the variation in the decision of the extension agents to target farmers with disabilities for extension advisory services. Our study points to the need for policies that seeks to support extension agents improve the targeting of farmers with disabilities in Ghana in order to improve their livelihoods and welfare.