Occupational Health Hazards in Paddy Cultivation Practices in the Coastal Region of Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

India is one of the largest producers of rice and ranks second in the world in production. All the cultivation practices in paddy are done manually by the farm labour due to various reasons such as lack of money, small land holding size, lack of awareness on improved tools, high operational cost of machinery, etc. Cultivation practices involved so much drudgery which results in the various work-related health hazards, and ultimately reducing the efficiency and productivity of work. So, address the above issue the present study was planned in the East and West Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh. 60 females and 60 males constitute the study based on the specific practices done by the males and females. Two blocks were selected from each district in which 30 samples (15 males and 15 females) were taken from each by using simple random sampling method which constitutes 120 sample size from four blocks. The study followed ex post facto research design. Pregnant women, lactating mothers, old age people, people with hyper tenson, diabetes, heart diseases were excluded in the study. The study included the farmers who are in age group 20-40 years, physically fit for doing farming, and at least 3 years farming experience.  A structured interview schedule has been prepared with the consent and construct the validity with the experts to assess the work-related health hazards and assigned mean ranks by using SPSS Software. Results found that in land preparation pain in the body (2.87), in irrigation tingling/ numbness in hand got the highest weighted mean (2.17), in manure and fertilizer application pain in the body (2.58), in pesticidal spray irritation in eyes/blurred vision (2.82), in threshing pain in the body (2.77), in load carrying pain in the body (2.82) has got the highest weighted mean which were the male- specific activities. Whereas in uprooting (2.83), transplanting (2.97), weeding (2.97), harvesting (3.00), and winnowing (2.37) tingling/numbness in hand have got highest weighted mean which were the female-specific activities. If they continue to work manually, they may face serious health problems which finally affect various factors such as the efficiency of work, productivity of work, the standard of living, healthy life, etc…So, it was suggested that they could go for the improved tools that are easily available and can reduce the drudgery to some extent.