Comparison of hazard, risk and type of control in three selected agricultural industries

Aumran, Norazlena (2014) Comparison of hazard, risk and type of control in three selected agricultural industries. [Project Paper] (Submitted)

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Abstract

Project paper (B.S.(Environmental & Occupational Health)) – Universiti Putra Malaysia, 2014. Agricultural workers cspccially rubber, pineapple and vegetable are expose to variety of health hazards from their work activities such as sowing, pruning, tapping, spraying pesticide, manuring, harvesting, packing and transporting crops into lony. The frequent exposure to hazards and high severity of the exposure can contribute to increase risk among workers performing work activities which can pose occupational health problem. Objectives: A cross sectional study was conducted to determine the work activities in each plantation and rating the risk of exposure from work activities also to compare the risk between rubber, pineapple and vegetables plantation. Methods: Cluster sampling method was adopted and a total of 147 plantation workers participated in this study. Data was collected through a face to face interview using self-constructed questionnaire on hazards exposures and direct observation of workers during performing work. HIRARC form adapted from DOSH (2008) was applied to assess the risks within work activities. Each work activities at plantation were recorded by using video recording to analyse hazards exposure among plantation workers. The result for pre-test questionnaires was 0.857. Results: The finding from HIRARC assessment shows that the highest risk rating within work activities among rubber plantation was within medium risk (RR=IO) for tapping process. For pineapple plantation, manually weeding control activity also indicated medium risk (RR=8). Harvesting and packaging process in tomato plantation both shows medium risk (RR=6) whereas applying pesticide in green mustard crops has the risk rating of 6 (medium risk). Based on the employees' perception, ergonomics hazards has the highest risk rating for bending while working (hean=7.16 ±4.29) in rubber plantation. Pineapple plantation has the highest in physical hazard for heat exposure (mean=6.08 ±2.33) whereas for chemical hazard has the highest risk rating in vegetable plantation (handling of pesticides). Vegetable plantation was the highest of existing control measures applied for all type of hazards followed by pineapple plantation whereas rubber plantation was the poor of applied control measures among workers. Conclusion: Ergonomics hazard is the most common hazards in all three plantadons especially in rubbcr industry. Physical hazards such as exposure to direct sunlight and contact with sharp cleaver were the most prominent in pineapple industry whereas chemical hazard from pesticide exposure was the high among those working in vegetable industry. The control measures applied was the highest among vegetable workers. Keywords: Risk assessment, Hazards, Plantation workers, Agriculture industries, Risk rating.

Item Type:	Project Paper
Faculty:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Science
Depositing User:	Ms. Adni Syuhaida Zon
Date Deposited:	23 Nov 2022 03:49
Last Modified:	24 Mar 2023 00:56
URI:	http://psaspb.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/469

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