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Occupational safety and health in traditional date palm works

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Abstract

Objective

Date palm is mostly cultivated in Western Asia and North Africa and is the main wealth for the people of these regions. Traditional date palm crown access via manual climbing, as the main activity in date fruit production, suffers from occupational hazards. Mitigation of these problems through interventions or new designs initially needs to complete knowledge of safety and health aspects and relationships between them and characters of date palm climbers. This study provided detailed information about this concern.

Methods

A questionnaire consisting of personal, operational, safety, satisfaction, financial and ergonomic demographics was used for data collection. 117 climbers participated in the study. Nonparametric correlations using Spearman’s coefficient and logistic regressions investigated the linkage between characters obtained by the questionnaire.

Results

The annual mortality rate of falls from height was calculated by 3.4 per one thousand men. Fall was a major challenge in traditional date palm crown access and its rate was highly greater in comparison with the estimation of International Labor Office (ILO) about fatal agricultural injuries. Safety and health condition was the main contributing factor in the status of date palm climbing and was significantly linked to job satisfaction. Safety risk-taking and non-awareness of technology had a significant linkage with together (r = − 0.195, p = 0.035). Safety risk-taking, also, had significant correlations with discomfort in back (r = − 0.201, p = 0.030). Regressions showed heavier climbers (> 75 kg) were expected about 4.3 (1/0.230) times than more lightweight ones to have an upper leg discomfort with high severity relative to low severity (p = 0.018).

Conclusion

Obesity, senescence, and awareness of technology as three personal characteristics of climbers need to be addressed. Future strategies are required to improve the safety condition of climbing and manage the workforces as well as governmental decision making to address the financial aspects of climbers for sustainable date production and reduction in reasons causing unemployment. Considering current status and modification of the present tool and equipment is recommended.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thanks volunteer participants for taking part in the study, Dr. Abbas Abdeshahi for his assistance with statistics, and The Research Deputy of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan for funding this project.

Funding

This study was funded by The Research Deputy of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Machinery and Mechanization Engineering, Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Mollasani, Khuzestan, Iran

    Abdollah Hayati, Afshin Marzban & Majid Rahnama

Authors
  1. Abdollah Hayati
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  2. Afshin Marzban
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  3. Majid Rahnama
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Contributions

Conceptualization: AH, AM, MR; Methodology: AH, AM; Formal analysis and investigation: AH; Writing—original draft preparation: AH; Writing—review and editing: AM, MR; Funding acquisition: AM; Resources: AH; Supervision: AM, MR.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Afshin Marzban.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

Informed consent from the participants was considered in the study. In the case of participants under 16 years, the consent was obtained from their parents or legal guardians. Privacy was considered about their personal information. The rules, protocol, and validity of the questionnaire were evaluated in the pre-study and were approved by the HSE committee of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan (ASNRUKH). To approve the validity, HSE committee reviewed, investigated and modified questions. In doing so, the questions of questionnaire had been developed by investigator and modified several times based on extensive conversation with date palm climbers and were tested with several climbers to assure clarity (Earle-Richardson et al., 2005). The study was approved by the HSE committee of ASNRUKH and was performed under the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Hayati, A., Marzban, A. & Rahnama, M. Occupational safety and health in traditional date palm works. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 94, 1455–1473 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-021-01664-4

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