Protective clothing for woman farm workers engaged in soyabean harvesting

Abstract

In Marathwada the activity of soya bean harvesting is predominantly done by the woman farm workers. The soya bean pods become hard, rough and thorny on drying which makes manual harvesting of soya bean very difficult, strenuous and problem creating. Woman farm workers faced health problems viz., cuts or wounds in hands, itching in hands and in other parts of the body, sun stroke while harvesting soya bean. The health problems of woman farm workers get aggravated due to non-usages of protective clothing while harvesting of soya bean. A protective Apron with attached hood is designed by the Clothing and Textile component of All India Coordinated Research ProjectHome Science of CCS HAU Hisar center, and protective Denim Mittens by UAS Dharwad center. These protective clothing were modified as per the anthropometric needs of the woman farm workers of Marathwada and up-scaled for the field trials. Thirty women farm worker who were engaged in soya bean harvesting were selected for the study. The set of protective clothing was used by each woman farm worker for the whole period of harvesting season and then they were interviewed to study the suitability of protective clothing while working. The Weighted Mean Scores obtained for the various functional features of the protective clothing indicated that the protective clothing were highly suitable for woman farm workers while harvesting soya bean.