Injuries during cultivation of land are the significant causes of recession for an agricultural country like Bangladesh. Thousands of tools are used in agricultural farm having much probability of getting injury at their workplaces. For the injury prevention, proper hand tool designs need to be recommended with ergonomic evaluations. This paper represents the main causes of agricultural injuries among the Bangladeshi farmers. Effective interventions had been discussed in this paper to reduce the rate of injury. This study was carried out in the Panchagarh district of Bangladesh. Data on 434 agricultural injuries were collected and recorded. About 67% injuries of all incidents were due to hand tools, and the remaining 33% were due to machinery or other sources. Though most of the injuries were not serious, about 22% injuries were greater than or equal to AIS 2 (Abbreviated Injury Scale). The practical implication of this study is to design ergonomically fit agricultural hand tools for Bangladeshi farmers in order to avoid their injuries.
A majority of workforce in the world is involved in agricultural activities [
Workplace injuries not only incur ill health, disability, and death but also have several negative economic consequences [
Finding optimum tool handle dimensions by using hand anthropometry has been the most common [
This study was done in three different steps.
Data on agriculture-related injuries were collected from the Panchagarh district of Bangladesh. Survey areas were located through multistage cluster sampling method. There are a total of five upazilas (subdistricts), including a total of 843 villages in the Panchagarh district. Among the five upazilas, the Boda and Debiganj upazilas were randomly selected. The number of villages in Boda and Debiganj upazilas is, respectively, 239 and 100. Then, all the villages were clustered, and 235 villages were randomly selected among 339 villages for our injury survey purpose. These villages are predominantly rice, sugarcane, and jute growing areas. The villages were selected for high agricultural involvement and absence of industry. In all these areas, cultivation methods and the quality of medical facilities were the same. Six field workers were trained by the authors to collect injury data from household surveys. The field workers were selected locally for the convenience of our study. It took seven months and two weeks for the field workers to complete their survey. Victims were interviewed regarding injury- and equipment-related information. A total of 434 injuries were found and recorded.
Standard interview was conducted with the agricultural farm workers by taking full permission from the interviewee and seeking the interviewees’ free time for the purpose of reducing participant error. The interview was made short, and care was taken to ensure that the participants may not feel annoyed or bored while some open-ended structured questions were being asked. To eradicate participant bias, injured persons were interviewed when they were alone, so that their responses may not be affected by the outside environment. To make the data collection reliable, two field workers conducted the interview together. One asked questions while the other recorded the responses, thus eliminating researcher error. The field workers stopped their survey work when they felt tired and uninterested to conduct the survey further. Discussions were also made with farm workers regarding the comforts and inconveniences they deal with their hand tools. The injuries that occurred more than one time for a single person within a period of one year were also recorded. The survey was continued by the field workers until the last person who was injured in that region was visited. After the visit, the houses were marked by the field workers to eradicate the chance of a repeat household survey. The severity of injury was recorded according to the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) [
Ergonomic evaluation of hand tools was made by measuring the dimensions of handles and taking anthropometric measurements of workers' hands. There are many types of hand tools used in Bangladeshi farms. In this study, the agricultural hand tools are divided into three categories as per their handle length shown in Figure
Farm hand tools. (a) Small handle, (b) medium handle, and (c) long handle.
The tools having 6–10 cm length are considered as small handle. Similarly, 75–90 cm length is for medium handle and 115–150 cm length for long handle. Small handle tools include sickles, daggers, digging forks, and small rakes; medium handle tools include axes and spades; and long handle tools include hoes and digging crowbars. Dimensions of some existing tools (handle diameter and handle length) were measured and recorded from different villages of that region.
A total of 42 hand tools that were available in the agricultural farms were observed. Anthropometric dimensions of hands were recorded from 60 farm workers from rural areas to estimate the handle design. The measurement technique of inside grip, palm diameter, and palm width and length is shown in Figure
Hand anthropometric dimension measuring tools: (a) wooden conical bar to measure inside grip diameter and (b) wooden conical bar to measure middle finger palm diameter.
To make ergonomic interventions of hand tools, dimensions of existing hand tools were compared with critical anthropometric dimensions of hands of the farmers in that region. Proper ergonomic interventions were made by figuring out the information associated with hand tool injuries, existing hand tool design, and hand anthropometry of agricultural workers.
Interventions were made by suggesting proper handle dimensions based on anthropometric consideration, which recommends that the handle diameter for three types of agricultural hand tools should lie between inside grip diameter of the 5th percentile and 95th percentile of middle finger palm dimension and that the handle length of small handle tool should accommodate the 95th percentile of palm breadth [
Among all the injuries, the injuries like cuts on the skin, scraping off of skin, superficial vein cuts, cuts on toes or fingers, and muscle stresses were recorded as AIS 1 severity, whereas cuts on limbs, deep vein cuts, permanent loss of any part of the body, and infections at injured limbs were considered between AIS 2 and AIS 3 severity of injury. Among all the injuries, most were found to be minor, ranging within AIS 1 to AIS 3. AIS 4 and AIS 5 were not found, and the 2 cases of AIS 6 were too negligible. Severity by injury type of some injuries was difficult to identify. Different types of injuries are presented in Table
Distribution of injuries by type of agricultural implements used and severity of injury.
Implements and hand tools | Severity of injury | Total | ||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIS 1 | AIS 2 | AIS 3 | AIS 6 | Unknown | ||||||||||||
Superficial vein cuts | Cuts on toes or fingers | Muscle stresses | Other injury type | Deep vein cuts | Permanent loss of any body part | Infection at injury limbs | Other injury type | Deep vein cuts | Permanent loss of any body part | Infection at injury limbs | Other injury type | For all injury severity | For all injury severity | |||
Small handle | Sickles | 27 | 14 | 9 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 64 |
Daggers | 14 | 5 | 2 | — | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | — | — | — | — | 29 | |
Digging forks | 9 | 11 | 4 | 3 | 2 | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | 31 | |
Medium handle | Rakes | 3 | — | 4 | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 8 |
Spades |
26 | 34 | 6 | 11 | 9 | 3 | 2 | — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 92 | |
Axes |
3 | 9 | — | — | 1 | 1 | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 | — | — | 1 | 18 | |
Long handle | Hoes | 9 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 2 | — | 1 | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | — | 26 |
Digging crowbar |
4 | 11 | — | 1 | 3 | 1 | — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | 11 | |
Machinery and others | (Tractor + trolley + cultivator) | 14 | 13 | 16 | 8 | 12 | 3 | 7 | 6 | 2 | 1 | — | 1 | 2 | 87 | |
Other tools | 16 | 11 | 8 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — | 1 | — | — | — | 58 | |
Total | 125 | 109 | 54 | 51 | 39 | 12 | 16 | 9 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 434 |
Farm-related injury (a) according to hand tools and (b) according to age.
Distribution of injuries by type of agricultural implements with age range of victims.
Implements | Age (years) | Total | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
5–15 | 16–30 | 31–45 | >45 | ||
Hand tools (all) | 45 | 119 | 71 | 54 | 289 |
(Tractor + trolley + cultivator) | 16 | 37 | 25 | 9 | 87 |
Others | 8 | 22 | 17 | 11 | 58 |
Total | 69 | 178 | 113 | 74 | 434 |
In this study, it was observed that 67% of agricultural injuries occurred due to hand tools and only 20% by cultivating machine such as trolley or tractor. Hence, hand tool injuries were predominant in this observation. Most of the injury occurred among 16- to 30-year-old workers, though 78% of the hand tool injuries were minor injuries (AIS 1), 17.5% were AIS 2, and less than 1% were AIS 6. Recovery time period was observed to be quite long as the farmers were usually reluctant to stop working during the recovery period. This tendency was due to their extreme poverty.
Frequencies of injury were recorded for the persons who had experienced injuries more than one time within a period of one year, which is stated in Table
Injury frequency of farm workers.
Frequency of injury | Number of injured persons | Percentage |
---|---|---|
1 | 257 | 59.2 |
2 | 104 | 24 |
3 | 33 | 7.6 |
4 | 12 | 2.8 |
5+ | 28 | 6.4 |
Total | 434 | 100 |
Anthropometric data of inside grip diameter, middle finger palm diameter, and palm breadth of 60 people of the Panchagarh district in Bangladesh were collected and summarized in Table
Hand anthropometric dimensions (in cm) (
Hand dimensions | Percentile | Minimum | Maximum | Standard deviation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
5th | 50th | 95th | ||||
Inside grip diameter | 3.8 | 4.2 | 4.6 | 3.6 | 4.6 | 0.23 |
Middle finger palm diameter | 2.1 | 2.5 | 3.2 | 2.02 | 3.32 | 0.35 |
Palm breadth thumb | 8.5 | 9.8 | 11.4 | 7.5 | 12 | 1.1 |
Based on the anthropometric consideration as discussed in Materials and Methodology, the handle diameter for three types of agricultural hand tools should lie between inside grip diameter of the 5th percentile and 95th percentile of middle finger palm dimension, and the handle length of small handle tool should accommodate the 95th percentile of palm breadth. According to this evaluation, based on hand anthropometric measurements of workers, the suggested handle diameter of hand tools should lie between 3.2 cm and 3.8 cm and handle length should not be less than 8.5 cm (Table
With the observation of 42 existing hand tools, the range of length and diameter of handles is found, respectively, to be 6–10 cm and 2.6–3.3 cm, 75–90 cm and 2.5–3.2 cm, and 115–150 cm and 2.6–3.4 cm. The deviations of existing tool dimensions from suggested handle diameter and handle length are shown in Figure
Deviation of handle dimensions with respect to suggested dimensions of (a) handle length and (b) handle diameter.
In Bangladesh, several types of hand tools are used in the agricultural field, such as sickles, daggers, digging forks, rakes, axes, spades, hoes, and digging crowbars. The tool handles available in Bangladeshi farms are mainly made of bamboo and wood. Some causes were found out during the interview of the injury victims. A handle without a smooth surface causes blisters on the palm skin. The sickle is a hand tool which causes lots of cut injuries such as cuts on the skin, superficial vein cuts, cuts on toes or fingers, and cuts on the limbs during harvesting because of its tip’s sharpness. Land preparation in agriculture is time-consuming and requires a lot of physical labor. Prolonged mode of work and continuous palm sweating cause tool slippage from hand during operation. This slippage is the leading reason for injuries like cuts on the skin, scraping off of skin, superficial vein and deep vein cuts, cuts on toes or fingers, muscle stresses, cuts on the limbs, and permanent loss of any part of body. Muscle stresses, permanent loss of any body part, and cut injuries mainly occur while working with hoes, digging forks, digging crowbars, and daggers. Sickles and hoes, which are used for removing weeds or cutting crops, injure the hand; the left hand is used for gathering and holding the crop and the right hand for holding the tool. This mode of operation causes deep cut injuries. While performing axe operation, if the target is missed, deep cuts or serious injuries can happen to the worker. This may lead to permanent loss of the injured body part.
In this study, it has been found that spades and sickles were mainly responsible for the larger proportion of injuries (21% and 15%, resp.) at agricultural farms (Table
More than 40% of injuries occurred within the 16–30-year-old group people (young people), and 26% occurred within the 31–45-year-old group (Table
Accidental hazards occur due to impact type of hand tools like spades, digging forks, digging crowbars, or axes due to the unpredictable nature of soil, standing water, or blade hitting hard surfaces like those of stones. Tools with very small handle diameter can slip from hands. Handle slippage can be prevented by an appropriate shape of the handle [
Hand tools bear a significant importance for ensuring workplace safety in agriculture [
Hand tools contribute 67% of total agricultural injuries in Bangladesh. The most significant injuries were cuts on the limbs, blisters on palm skin because of high stress in hand, tool slippage from hand, and so on. The mentionable reason behind these injuries is the mismatch of anthropometric dimensions of workers’ hands with measured ergonomic tool handle dimensions. Improper handle dimensions lead to high stress and injury at work and sometimes result in workers’ physical disability. To achieve better productivity along with better safety and comfort, the whole working system and tools must be redesigned so that these can be suitable for the workers to use. The handle is an important part of hand tools. Thus a proper grip dimension is very important to ensure effectiveness when operating the tool. That is why anthropometric considerations are needed for such design work. This study was focused on developing the farming sector of agriculture through ergonomic principles. The result of this study may improve the design of hand tools and may inspire the manufacturers in using recommended tool handle dimensions to apply these in practice and to design hand tools or equipment that suit the physical characteristics of the workers.
In this study, anthropometric data were collected from 60 male people of the Panchagarh district. Though there is not much ethnic or geographical diversity among Bangladeshi people of different regions, the authors suggest that future researchers observe a large number of sample population from different regions and design tools accordingly. As the scenario of working condition in most of the villages in Bangladesh is almost the same, the provided injury data can be a great resource for the administration and for social workers to understand the working condition in agricultural farms of Bangladesh.
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
M. S. Parvez obtained his BSc degree in Industrial and Production Engineering from Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET). His research interests include human factor engineering, product design and development, customer-led design, supply chain management, and operations management. He is an assistant professor of Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, Khulna, Bangladesh (email: sparvez.ipe@gmail.com). M. M. Shahriar is studying for a BSc in Industrial and Production Engineering in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management of Khulna University of Engineering & Technology. His research interests include ergonomics, conceptual design, optimization, operations research, and operations management (email: mdmunemshahriar@gmail.com).
The authors are pleased to acknowledge Istiaqur Rahman, Imtiazur Rahman, Zawad Hussain, Nure-e-Taz Wahida, Muntasir Mamun, and Hemaedul Islam for their cooperation and assistance in conducting surveys and collecting data in this study. The authors are also thankful to Dr. Shawkat Ali (Assistant Surgeon, Boda Upazila Health Complex, Panchagarh), Dr. Mehedi Rafique Al Islam (Medical Officer, Debigonj Upazila Health Complex, Panchagarh), and Dr. Azmira Islam (Assistant Registrar, Medicine, Army Medical College, Rangpur) for their help, support, and consultation through the study.