Occupational health hazards and drudgeries perceived by the women farmers in western Zone of Uttar Pradesh

Study was conducted to find out the extent and magnitude of drudgery and gender gap perceived by farmwomen of the western zone of UP. Investigation was carried by eight KVKs namely Pilibhit, Sahjahanpur, Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, Bulandshahar, Meerut, GB Nagar and Agra. Further, from the selected KVKs’ operational areas, two villages from each KVK in which KVK was implementing the activities since last two years were selected. Twenty farm women/village from each enterprise i.e. crop production, livestock and post harvest were selected for the study purpose comprising total sample of 960 respondents from 16 selected villages. It was found out that more than ninety per cent of the respondents possessed sickle (96.15%) and hand plough (Phawda) (95.83%) followed by Khurpi (46.04%) and Fertilizer sprayer/Broad Caster (45.52%). Other improved hand tools like maize sheller, chaff cutter, sprinkler, manual chaff cutter (gandasa) and fruit harvester were found with very less number of respondents. Maximum work were performed by women in all the operations pertaining to crop production, post harvest handling and dairy related activities whereas males were more involved in ploughing and making of fields, seed purchase, irrigation, fertilizer purchase, helps in harvesting, loading of bags for transportation, arrangements for thresher, threshing, helps in winnowing, selling of produce, sell and purchase of animals, fodder cultivation, vaccination and medication of animals and selling of milk. Paddy transplanting was found to be very difficult, it used standing and bending posture. Harvesting, plucking, uprooting, detopping, field cleaning and weeding activities were perceived maximum drudgery. These activities were accomplished in every season and for every crop it took 5–6 hours on an average. About 90.73 per cent faced injuries during multiple operations, the majority expressed that existing tools do not help in reducing force (61.67%) and they felt tired after performing the work (74.58%). The majority of the respondents facing joint problems (76.56%), feel difficulty in bending (83.13%) and got scratches/cuts/injuries problems (62.19%) in farm/allied activities. Most of them faced very severe pain in backbone (78%), shoulder (72%), wrist (61%) and waist (45%) while performing different works related to crop production, post-harvest handling, and livestock activities.