Farmers’Injuries, Discomfort and Its Use in Design of Agricultural Hand Tools: A Case Study from East Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Farmers in East Java, Indonesia have opinions of the agricultural hand tools that they wear. In farming activities they get injured due to the use of agricultural equipments. The most injury was in hand. Farmers feel fatigue/discomfort in different levels of their body part when using agricultural tools. Majority of farmers complained to suffer fatigue in upper back (92.8%), mid back (93.6%), and lower back (91.8%), respectively. The third major criteria’s design of agricultural hand tools base on survey resulted are be safe, good and fit in hand, and easy to use. The ergonomic evaluation suggests their handle length and diameter to be 12.4 cm and 3.0 cm, respectively.