INTRODUCTION
Occupational health deals with the control of health hazards that may arise while doing an agricultural work in a farm or a laboratory. It relates to recognising, anticipating, evaluating and controlling those environmental factors at a workplace, which may be a reason of some health issues. Despite taking all precautions and care, often accidents occur while handling and applying chemicals and bio-agents. It is essential for students to know about immediate medical aid that must be administered, in case a chemical or mechanical accident occurs in a farm or a lab, and learn about the safety measures that they need to adopt in order to prevent such hazards.
SESSION 1: PREVENT HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS AT WORKPLACE
Hazard
A hazard may be defined as a condition that has the potential to cause an injury to human beings and adversely affect the environment. A hazard can lead to adverse health effects and physical damage under certain situations at a workplace. Fig. 5.1 shows the different types of hazards.
Types of hazards
Natural hazards
These hazards occur because of natural incidents, which may include meteorological (e.g., heavy rains and floods), geological (e.g., landslides and earthquakes), and biological (e.g., gas leaks) factors. Examples of natural hazards are cyclone, earthquake, tsunami and volcanic eruption. Landslide, drought, flood and fire are socio-natural or hybrid hazards as their causes may be both natural and manmade. The natural hazards threatening India include earthquakes (usually, in the Himalayan region), floods, including tsunamis (usually, in river deltas and coastal areas), and landslides (usually, in hilly areas during heavy rains).
Electrical hazards
Ergonomic huuards
Natural hazards
Mechanical hazards
Hazards
Chemical hazarda
Occupational hazards
Accidents
Fig. 5.1: Types of hazards
Mechanical hazards
They are related to poorly designed and ill-maintained agricultural machinery.
Hazards related to pesticides and chemicals
Pesticides are solutions meant for destroying, mitigating and controlling pests. Accidental death from pesticides is a rarity but skin infections and disorders, and health issues may occur, if timely precautions are not taken (Fig. 5.2). Careless handling or use of pesticides can cause harmful effects to the environment and human beings. Precautions must be taken during the selection of pesticides, their transportation, loading, mixing, application, storage and container disposal (Fig. 5.3 and 5.4).
Pesticides may enter our food in the following ways:
extensive use in growing crops
frequent and unwanted application by a grower in a crop
application of poor quality pesticides by the grower
a pesticide dealer cheats farmers by giving wrong advice and supplying poor quality of pesticides
continuance of banned pesticides
liquid waste from pesticide manufacturing units unsafe disposal of leftover pesticides and cleaning of plant protection equipment
pesticide production and marketing
Precautions
Fig. 5.4: Signage indicating pesticide application in a field
Toxicity labels marked on the pesticide packing, as shown in Fig. 5.5, must be taken into account while using pesticides.
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Chemicals should not be sprayed in foggy and windy weather.
POISON
POISON
A person spraying chemicals should not have an open injury on his/her body.
Accidents
DANGER
CAUTION
Accidents are unfortunate incidents attributable to various factors that a person faces during work, causing physical injury, death and acute poisoning when exposed to a toxic product even for a short duration.
Fig. 5.5: Colours showing toxicity labels of pesticides
Occupational hazards at agricultural farm
Farmers and workers, while working in an agricultural farm, can suffer from a number of occupational hazards. These include hazards related to farm machinery, biological and chemical hazards, and stress. The hazards may cause injuries, health disorders or diseases. Some of the reasons for injuries and accidents at agricultural farms are as follows:
being hit by a moving vehicle
falling from height
contact with large animals
contact with a heavy falling object or material
contact with a farm machinery
drowning
musculo-skeletal injury (aches, sprains or strains)
effects of toxic chemicals through inhalation or exposed body parts
Hazards related to animals
Injuries inflicted by animals include bites, kicks, crushing and transmission of certain infectious diseases. If a farmer or a person working in a field gets injured by a farm animal, immediate first aid must be administered to him/her and required medical procedures be followed. Injuries from cattle relate to a number of factors, including lack of trained workers, unsafe work practices, weight of an animal, stress and sometimes the behaviour of the animal.
Hazards by animals may vary as per their age, breed, sex, weight, temperament, horn status and training imparted to them.
It is also in look, heifers can be dangerous at the time of weaning.
Cattle, kept isolated, are likely to be more aggressive when approached.
Cattle with sharp and pointed horns are dangerous, therefore, dehorning is recommended.
Ergonomic hazards
These are caused by inappropriate and cumbersome postures, leading to damage or pain in muscles and tendons. These are mainly caused while working on or with poorly designed tools.
Hazards related to electricity
An electric hazard arises due to faulty switches and machines, poor quality cords, overhead power lines, etc. Faulty electrical installations and use of cheap quality equipment can even cause fires (Fig. 5.6). When an equipment or a machinery gets close to a high tension line, it can lead to electric shocks, causing injury to the driver or the person handling it.
In some severe cases, it can even lead to electrocution, causing permanent disability or death of a person.
Hazards related to heights
Hazards related to heights include falls from ladders, rooftops, farm machinery, tractors and windmills. These are major causes of injury. The following precautions must be taken to prevent hazards due to heights (Fig. 5.7):
Always wear safety and protective devices, such as headgear, while working on rooftops.
Climbing ladders should be strong, unbreakable and non-slippery.
An attendant must always hold the ladder.
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH, HYGIENE AND FIRST AID PRACTICES
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Fig. 5.6: Electricity hazard sign
Fig. 5.7: Height hazard sign
NOTES
A worker must hook an elastic rope around his waist that has one end locked while working at heights.
Hazards related to water
Floods, droughts and other water related hazards have major impacts on the socio-economic status of farmers. Lakes, ponds, wells, rivers, channels, tanks, etc., all are hazardous, especially for young children. Children playing on farmland should be cautioned not to go near water bodies.
Hazards related to extreme weather
Hazards due to extreme weather conditions in an agricultural farm may occur due to sunburn, heatstroke, dehydration and extreme exposure to cold.
Risk
a measure of Risk may be defined as the danger of loss from unforeseen circumstances. It is the potential danger associated with an activity. Understanding the kind of harm that a machinery may cause a farm worker or assessing the risk helps design and implement strategic and operational plans for the mitigation of hazards. For example, the main hazard of a power-driven machine is that of its getting trapped or entangled in wires, ropes, etc. The risk may be high if one does not fit guards to the machine or train the staff in handling it. If the machine is properly handled and timely maintained, the risk automatically gets reduced.
Risk assessment is a careful lookout at what could be the cause of harm to workers or other people present on a site. There are no fixed rules to conduct a risk assessment, even though some well-defined norms must always be taken into account, such as legislation, regulations, technical norms, codes of practice, principles of risks prevention, etc. These, along with the following measures, can help avert an accident in a farm.
identification of dangers in every aspect of a work
identification of people who may be exposed to particular risks
the reliability and adequacy of existing precautionary or preventive measures
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decision on new measures that should be introduced to eliminate or reduce risks
NOTES
Disaster
Besides hazards, the farming community also has to face various types of natural and manmade disasters. A disaster can be termed as as "a sudden misfortune that causes a great damage to life". In other words, it can be explained as "an unexpected event whose consequences are seriously destructive".
A disaster can be a combination of a hazard, vulnerability and insufficient capacity of individuals or a community to minimise the potential probability of a risk. It can either be natural, i.e., floods, cyclones, droughts, earthquakes, etc., or manmade, such as riots, fires, conflicts, epidemics, industrial accidents, environmental fallouts, etc.
What have you learned?
Now, I am able to:
differentiate between risk and hazard.
understand the common hazards that can occur in an agricultural farm.
