Anthropometric survey of farm workers of Ladakh region of India and its application in equipment design

Abstract

Abstract: The environment and resultant discomfort has severe impact on overall working efficiency of human and machine while using farm tools and machinery in hills.  The Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir State of India is predominantly hilly.  Anthropometric data of agricultural workers is very essential for the safe and efficient design of farm machinery.  In the present studies, an anthropometric survey was carried out for agricultural workers of Ladakh region, wherein 90 male and female agricultural workers were selected and 79 body dimensions were precisely measured and recorded from each subject, thereafter analysed statistically.  For making the data comprehensive and more useful, a set of 23 body dimensions, which are having direct implications on agricultural tool/implement design were selected, and compared with data of different regions of India and also with those of Egyptian, Japanese, British, Thailand, Mexican and Chinese workers.  There were significant differences in stature and other body dimensions among the populations.  From these data, it appears that values of body dimensions of Ladakh workers were lesser than those of five other regions of India and six other countries as mentioned above.  In stature, Ladakhi men were shorter by 5.08 cm as compared to North-eastern Indian male workers.  Similarly, Ladakhi women were shorter by 12.65 cm as compared to British women.  The Ratio of sitting height to stature (RSH) of Indian women (present study) was found lower (0.46) as compared to those of Egyptian (0.52), Japanese (0.53), British (0.53), Thailand (0.53) and Chinese (0.54).  The obtained results indicate that Indian women are short legged.  These results suggest that it is essential to generate the necessary anthropometric data of different regions of the country through extensive surveys for designing region specific farm machineries to properly exploit the working potential of farm workers.  Application of this data on tool design is illustrated through some examples.

Keywords: anthropometric survey, body dimensions, agricultural workers, tool design