Factors in the non-adoption of personal protective equipment (ppe) by farmers in the subtropics of jammu, India

The study was undertaken to analyse the factors in the non-adoption of personal protective equipment (PPE) by farm households in the sub-tropics of Jammu region of Jammu & Kashmir state. The study was conducted by employing non-experimental descriptive research design. Multi stage sampling technique was applied for selecting a total sample of 370 farmers: 270 rice-wheat cultivating farmers from Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts and 100 vegetable cultivating farmers from Jammu district. The data were collected from the respondent farmers by using pre-tested interview schedule by means of face-to-face interviews with farmers. The results revealed that, although majority of the respondent farmers spray pesticides themselves, most farmers showed potentially unsafe behaviour with respect to PPE use. Gloves (10%) in case of rice-wheat farmers and boots (22%) in case of vegetable farmers were the most commonly used protective items. The percentage of farmers not adopting any PPE was more in both rice-wheat (26%) and vegetable crops (17%) and the difference was statistically significant (Z=1.96, p=0.05). The study further revealed that in the sub tropics of Jammu, the factors impeding the adoption of personal protective equipment were predominantly socio-personal variables of age (p=0.00) and experience (p=0.00) in case of rice-wheat farmers and the variable age (p=0.01) in case of vegetable farmers.