Musculoskeletal problems of agricultural workers

Musculoskeletal problems have become endemic in agriculture work. The workers often complain about pain various parts of the body while performing agricultural activities. The results revealed that during land preparation, sowing, irrigation most of the males and female agricultural worker reported very severe to severe pain in lower back and moderate pain in other body parts viz. neck, shoulder, upper arm, palm/fingers, upper back and thighs. In the activity of sowing, due to frequent changes in posture and continuous movements, 75 per cent of females and half of the male respondents reported pain. Percentage of women reporting musculoskeletal problems in plant protection activity were less but 70 per cent of males repoetred very severe to moderate pain in neck, shoulders and upper arms as the act of spraying required considerable strength. While performing the weeding activity, all females experienced severe pain in lower back. In harvesting activity male and female agricultural workers experienced severe to very severe in upper arms, shoulders, neck, thighs and lower back because of the repetitive motion of the body part and the heavy loads, which they carried. The data of musculoskeletal problems during the activity of threshing indicated that the respondents perceived very severe to moderate pain in upper back, shoulders, upper arms and lower back although the intensity varied. Body Part Discomfort Score (BPDS) of the male and female respondents engaged in the agricultural activities reveal that it was highest in the activity of weeding followed by the activity of land preparation and the next in order were threshing, harvesting, irrigation and use of chemicals. The Overall Discomfort Rating scores shows that all the activities were in the range of `high discomfort` both for males and females except irrigation in which the Overall Discomfort Rating scores were in the range of `moderate discomfort` and the ODR of females in case of plant protection activity was in the range of `light discomfort`.