Ergonomic evaluation of different paddy threshing methods in Meghalaya

Paddy threshing is an essential part of harvesting in paddy production in which farm machinery plays a crucial role for efficient threshing, reduced threshing losses and improved threshing capacity. Traditionally, farmers often thresh paddy by hand beating using a stick, or hitting a punch of harvested paddy on a wooden log followed by hand beating with a locally evolved hand tool. In this study, three different paddy threshing methods, including conventional hand beating, cycle-type pedal-operated thresher, and foot-type pedal-operated thresher, were subjected to ergonomic measures such heart rate (HR), energy expenditure rate and overall discomfort rating (ODR). It was observed that energy demand and ODR are significantly high (P<0.05) in farmers in the case of conventional hand-beating paddy threshing method than in paddy threshing by cycle-type pedal-operated thresher, and foot-type pedal-operated thresher. It was noticed that mean working EER, mean energy expenditure, and mean working ODR decreased by 19.69 and 15.15 percent, by 38.72 percent and 26.66 percent, and by 50 and 34.37 percent in case of paddy threshing by cycle-type and foot-type paddy thresher respectively as compared to hand-beating paddy threshing method with a significance level of P<0.05. The results suggested that cycle-type and foot-type paddy thresher gave better performance from ergonomics perspective as compared to traditional hand-beating method.