Weeding ...a sternous farm activity

WEEDING

the research results of ergonomic evaluation of weeding activity......

Ø Mean age of rural woman collecting weeds was 29.5 years, measuring body weight and height as 50 kg and 155.5 cm., respectively having mesomorph body (60.0%). Aerobic capacity was found to be 1.79 l/min having high average physical fitness. A significant positive correlation existed between VO2 max and body weight.

Ø Traditional kasola was used to remove weeds by majority of respondents (80.0%) and spent nearly 4 hours covering a distance of 4 kms per day on weeding.

Ø Heart rate increased in woman while collecting weeds (104.4bpm). Increase was more in older age group varying from 97.8 bpm to 122bpm. A woman showed energy expenditure as 6.79 Kj/min for weeding. Direct relationship existed between heart rate and energy expenditure.

Ø Physiological cost of work of a woman doing weeding was 66.0 bpm. Physiological workload of the woman while collecting weeds was graded as heavy and moderately heavy.

Ø Grip strength increased upto 6.8% after the start of the activity whereas it decreased up to 14.4% at the end of the activity. Increase in grip strength was more in lower age group (7.0%) whereas the decrease was more in upper age group. Bending and squatting posture was adopted for about 35 to 38 times while collecting weeds. More deviation was observed in lumbar region (14.4^o) than the cervical region (2.1^o) during collection of weeds .A woman reported severe to moderate pain in upper, mid and lower back, fingers and shoulders. Mild pain was reported in lower extremities.

Ø Mean temperature, relative humidity and noise was recorded as 42.2^oC, 37.1% and 47.3db, respectively.

here are the power point presentaion....

Farm women bringing fodder

Farm-women perform various animal rearing activities..

and fodder collection is one of them;

women bringing fodder from her field, usually farmhouses with land in their possession grow green fodder for their animals, and mostly women bring the head load of fodder from their fields, and after bringing the fodder they cut it with chaff cutter

xoxo

From diary of 1996

Aicrp in home science is now at silvery jubilee stage of development. At this time when the women are empowered and boomed with the technology to ease their life. I can’t forget the phase of plight we faced during the starting point of our situation analysis part of the project. At the start of the project our honor and enthusiast HOD Dr.Revthi Balakrishnan escorted us in making selection of villages ( in 1984). We went to the District head Quarter of City Jind, procured the list of villages. We selected two villages Kharak Ramji and Khunga Kothi. When we started our journey to the villages by bus, we were dropped at the village link road i.e. still the village of our study was 3 miles away. We were provided with a cart by some of the resident of the villages. Any how we reached the village stayed there for a week, collected our data and returned. Research associates working in the project are acting as modern as well as information tools for the rural women in general and rural farm women as particular.

I want to share with you my experiences of rural areas while working for the project. Our worthy dean Dr. Khalkadena exposed us to Ms. Madhu Sarin who advocated solutions to make the smoke free kitchen in the rural areas. Later she enjoyed the support of bureaucrats to propagate her ideas of smoke less chullahs. She attracted many a great minds to work with her in her new vision and I was privileged to work with her for some time.

I have in mind a small, delicate woman, with a family of small children, which does all her own housework, milks four or five cows, cooks for extra help, carries from a spring all the water. No time to read a paper or a book. Late to bed and early to rise, yet neither he nor she has any idea they could make her burden easier.

Happy day