Comparison of farmers workload by manual and mechanical tasks on family farms

• Published in: Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine 2013, Vol.20 (2), p.356-360
• Main Authors: Groborz, Anna, Juliszewski, Tadeusz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Agriculture; Agriculture - methods; Family farms; Farmers; Farms; Female; Heart Rate; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Sex Distribution; Statistical analysis; Work - classification; Workload - classification; Workloads; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1232-1966; 1898-2263

The aim of this study was to compare the workload between tasks undertaken manually and those with the assistance of mechanical devices. The results indicate that the workload during the tasks assisted by mechanisation was usually very low or relatively low. Statistical analysis showed the impact of the way of the work performance on the workload. However, the results also indicate that the workload is not evenly distributed: the effort relating to the working tasks is larger in relation to the work of women than men. The need for mechanisation of the tasks performed by women is higher than that for the mechanisation of tasks performed by men. The type of work performance (manual, or technically assisted) did not clearly show significant differences in the workload. This surprising result indicates that the technical devices used on many farms are still far from perfect. It is concluded that assisting work with mechanical devices reduces the workload of farmers, but the way of work performance (manual or mechanical) was not statistically significant.