Conference Paper

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH HAZARDS IN MECHANIZED PADDY RICE PRODUCTION: EVIDENCE FROM IBAJI, KOGI STATE, NIGERIA.

Farm work related injuries resulting from poor implementation, practicing and monitoring of health and safety policy (HSP) on mechanized agricultural farms had overtime impeded the productive efficiency of concerned workers. These among other factors, affects farmers’ agricultural productivity negatively. It was in accordance to these perspectives that safety hazards (SH) associated with mechanized paddy rice production by farmers in Ibaji agro communities was studied. 120 respondent-paddy rice farmers were chosen at random, questionnaires on SH and physical interview were adopted for data collation purpose. The research revealed the male gender populated farmers of about 61.7%. Poor occupational safety culture was recorded only for agrochemical handling operations. This was characterized by low hazard awareness – 12.7%, safety training - 16.7%, literacy levels - 23%, use of personal protective equipment (PPE) - 13.7%, low SH policies implementation and monitoring of about 19% and 24% respectively. These consequently resulted to about 90% of SH accident incidences recorded annually among the farmers. 85% of these incidences were attributed agrochemical attack resulting to burns, while 67% were of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD). Farm machinery and equipment (FM&E) operations recorded high safety culture compliance measures as shown in figure 2; resulting to only 19% of accident incidences. These incidences stemmed from SH were observed to be affiliated with mechanized operation adopted by the paddy rice farmers in their farming operations. Keywords: Farmers, Occupational Safety, Health hazards, Paddy rice, Production and Ibaji