Investigating Occupational Farm Safety Hazards Mitigating Mechanized Operations for Paddy Rice Production in Ibaji

Lawrence Ebenehi Enemaku & Sunday Ojima Enemaku, Volume 7 Issue 1, July 2026 Pages 23-28, Published: 2026-06-02

Abstract

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, affect farmers’ agricultural productivity negatively. It was in accordance to these perspectives that occupational farm safety hazards (OFSH) mitigating mechanized paddy rice production by farmers in Ibaji agro communities was studied. 120 respondent-paddy rice farmers were chosen at random, questionnaires on OFSH and physical interview were adopted for data collation purpose. The research revealed the male gender populated farmers of about 62%. 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 OFSH policies implementation and monitoring of about 19% and 24% respectively. These consequently resulted have about 90% of OFSH 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 occurrences stemmed from OFSH were observed as deterrent factors mitigating paddy rice farmers’ adoption of mechanized techniques in their farming operations