Machinery Usage Research Articles

Development of a high-resolution emission inventory of agricultural machinery with a novel methodology: A case study for Yangtze River Delta region

Recent increased use of agricultural machines elevated the atmospheric pollutant emissions in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region in eastern China. Given the potentially large environmental and health impacts in busy seasons with enhanced machinery usage, it is important to accurately estimate the magnitude, spatial and temporal distributions of the emissions. We developed a novel method to estimate the real-world in-use agricultural machinery emissions, by combining satellite data, land and soil information, and in-house investigation. The machinery usage was determined based on the spatial distribution, growing and rotation pattern of the crops. The varied requirement of machinery power by heterogeneous soil texture, which was ignored in the previous studies, was considered in our methodology. The spatiotemporal pattern of machinery usage was determined based on the explored quantitative correlation between the local agricultural activity duration and the geographic location of the activity. A “grid-based” (30 × 30 m) inventory with daily emissions was then obtained, achieving significant improvement on spatial and temporal resolution. It substantially diminished the bias of previous inventories based on the machinery population or power installation census data. The emissions of NOX, PM2.5, CO and THC were estimated at 36300, 2000, 36900 and 8430 metric tons in YRD, with the majority contribution from Anhui and Jiangsu. Ten cities locating in northern and central Anhui and Jiangsu contributed the largest machinery emissions, accounting for 60% of the total emissions in YRD. Harvesting was found to have the largest emissions, followed by tilling and planting. Regarding the crops, the emissions from wheat and rice related machinery usage were the largest. In the busy seasons (spring and autumn), larger daily NOX and PM2.5 emissions were found from machinery than on-road vehicles in 42% of counties in Anhui and Jiangsu, highlighting the necessity of careful strategy making on controls of priority emission source.

Determining the Precise Work Area of Agriculture Machinery Using Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence

Precisely measuring the work area of agriculture farm machinery is important for performing the authentication of machinery usage, better allocation of resources, measuring the effect of machinery usage on the yield, usage billing and driver’s behaviour. The manual measurement, which is a common practice is an error-prone and time-consuming process. The irregular fields make it even more difficult to calculate the work area. An automatic solution that uses smart technology and algorithms to precisely calculate the work area is crucial for the advancement of agriculture. In this work, we have developed a smart system that utilizes the Internet of Things (IoT), Global Positioning System (GPS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) that records the movement of agriculture machinery and use it to measure the precise work area of its usage. The system couples the nearest neighbourhood algorithms with Contact-based mechanisms to find the precise work area for different shaped fields and activities. The system was able to record the movement of machinery and calculate its work area, regardless of how many times the machinery runs through a particular field. Our evaluation shows that the system was able to precisely find the work boundaries and calculate the area with a maximum of 9% error for irregular shapes.

Farm Mechanization in Indian Agriculture with Focus on Tractors

Indian agriculture is dominated by smallholders. With an average holding size of just 1.08 hectares (ha) (in 2015-16), and 86 percent of holdings being of less than 2 ha in size, Indian agriculture transformed the country from functioning ‘ship-to-mouth’ during the mid-1960s to being a net exporter of agri-produce today. This would not have been possible without the onset of the Green Revolution post-1965, which resulted in increased foodgrain production and productivity. Among various inputs such as seeds, irrigation and fertilizers, the productivity of farms also depends greatly on the availability and judicious use of farm power by the farmers. Between the mid-20th century and 2013-14, India witnessed a tremendous shift away from traditional agriculture processes to mechanized processes. Today, 88 percent of the total farm power comes from tractors, diesel engine pump-sets, electric pump-sets and power tillers (2013-14). Additionally, India has emerged as the largest manufacturer of tractors in the world, followed by the USA and China. But how has farm mechanization, especially the use of tractors, evolved in India over time? What were the key drivers of the demand for tractors? And how efficiently are the tractors being used in terms of usage by number of hours/year? Given the high cost of tractors, it is also interesting to see how far they have penetrated the small and marginal holdings, i.e., the issues of inclusiveness, financial viability and sustainability. These are some of the key questions that are addressed in this study. Our analysis shows that farm mechanization in India, especially the use of tractors, has made commendable progress. With major policy changes, entry of private farm machinery manufacturing companies and foreign collaborations, farm power availability increased from 0.25 kilowatt per hectare (kW/ha) in 1951 to 2.02 kW/ha in 2017. Furthermore, the contribution of mechanized sources to farm power increased from some 3 percent in 1951 to 88 percent in 2013-14, replacing human and draught power. In addition, the production of tractors increased significantly from a meager 880 units in 1951 to about 900,000 units in 2019. This has transformed India from being a net importer of tractors through the 1960s and 1970s to being an exporter of tractors, exporting some 92,000 units in 2019. In terms of inclusiveness, although larger farms are more mechanized, the Input Census data (2011-12) reveals that even in the category of small and marginal holdings (less than 2 ha), an average of roughly 44 percent of farmers use farm machinery (e.g., tractors, diesel engine pump sets, electric pump sets and power tillers). This is a good achievement, but further improvements are always possible and major attempts in this direction are already underway with heavy policy support through Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs). However, the fact that farm machinery is expensive also raises concerns over whether it is financially viable and sustainable to own and use on smallholder farms. It is therefore important to look at unfolding innovations providing farm machinery services through ‘CHCs’ and ‘Uberization’ models. These innovations make farm machinery and equipments perfectly divisible as a service to all classes of farmers at the doorstep at affordable cost on a ‘pay per use’ basis. This seems to be the future of farm machinery usage in India, if it is developed as a sustainable business model with due support of policy and finance.

Economies of scale and mechanization in Chinese corn and wheat production

ABSTRACTAs the growth in Chinese farm productivity slowed down between 2000 and 2010, modernizing agriculture has become a priority of the Chinese government. Given the important role of mechanization and land reform policies in that context, this study investigates farm production in China with a specific emphasis on the potential role of mechanization as well as land and farm consolidation. A production function is estimated using farm household data on corn and wheat production in the Shandong and Hebei provinces. The results allowed us to explore the potential economies of scale across a range of farm size, the impact of land fragmentation, and assess the impact of machinery usage. Our findings suggest that, taken in isolation, the prospect for efficiency gains from mechanization and land reforms appears limited.

The Carbon Footprint of Energy Consumption in Pastoral and Barn Dairy Farming Systems: A Case Study from Canterbury, New Zealand

Dairy farming is constantly evolving to more intensive systems of management, which involve more consumption of energy inputs. The consumption of these energy inputs in dairy farming contributes to climate change both with on-farm emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels, and by off-farm emissions due to production of farm inputs (such as fertilizer, feed supplements). The main purpose of this research study was to evaluate energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, the carbon footprint, of pastoral and barn dairy systems located in Canterbury, New Zealand. The carbon footprints were estimated based on direct and indirect energy sources. The study results showed that, on average, the carbon footprints of pastoral and barn dairy systems were 2857 kgCO2 ha−1 and 3379 kgCO2 ha−1, respectively. For the production of one tonne of milk solids, the carbon footprint was 1920 kgCO2 tMS−1 and 2129 kgCO2 tMS−1, respectively. The carbon emission difference between the two systems indicates that the barn system has 18% and 11% higher carbon footprint than the pastoral system, both per hectare of farm area and per tonne of milk solids, respectively. The greater carbon footprint of the barn system was due to more use of imported feed supplements, machinery usage and fossil fuel (diesel and petrol) consumption for on-farm activities.

Decreasing the carbon footprint of an intensive rice-based cropping system using conservation agriculture on the Eastern Gangetic Plains

Emerging conservation agriculture (CA) technologies are being applied in rice-upland cropping systems and their potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions of the whole rice-based cropping systems could be significant in South Asia especially if they increase soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks. A streamlined life cycle assessment was conducted in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (Bangladesh) to determine greenhouse gas emissions from successive crops of monsoon rice (Oryza sativa), mustard (Brassica juncea) and irrigated rice under CA practices in contrast with the conventional crop establishment practice while accounting for changes in SOC. The life cycle greenhouse gas tonne−1 rice equivalent yield was assessed for four cropping practices: a) traditional crop establishment practices with farmers’ practice of minimal residue return, or b) CT with return of increased residues; c) strip planting (for mustard)/transplanting on non-puddled soils (for rice) with farmers’ practice of minimal residue return or; d) strip planting/non-puddled transplanting with increased residue return. The global warming potential values for the 100-year timescale were used to calculate CO2eq emissions within the system boundary. The net life cycle greenhouse gas emissions after allowing for changes in SOC sequestration varied from 0.73 to 1.12 tonne CO2eq tonne−1 rice equivalent yield. In the annual cropping system, methane (CH4) released from on-farm stage of the life cycle assessment, particularly from the rice crops, represented the dominant contributor to life cycle greenhouse gas emissions. The greenhouse gas emitted by machinery usage during the on-farm stage (irrigated rice), CO2 emission from soil respiration (monsoon rice), and greenhouse gas related to manufacture of inputs (mustard) were secondary sources of emission, in that order of priority. The non-puddlled transplanting of soil with low and increased residue retention were the most effective greenhouse gas mitigation options when sequestered SOC was taken into account (they avoided 35% of the net life cycle footprints compared with current farmers’ practice) in footprints of component crops of the rice-upland cropping system. The CA approaches being developed for the Eastern Gangetic Plains involving strip planting or non-puddled transplanting of rice have potential to mitigate global warming potential of intensive rice-based triple cropping systems but the life cycle assessment approach needs to be applied to a more diverse range of rice-based cropping systems.

Organizational and Economic Principles of Agricultural Machinery Use

Abstract Technical support of producers of agrarian products has always been and will remain a topical issue in realities of agrarian sector of Ukraine. In recent years, integrated forms of agricultural enterprises have become more widespread, which make it possible to increase and renew a machine-tractor park of their participants. In course of study four main technologies of soil cultivation and their impact were considered, an amount of necessary machinery and equipment, energy and labor costs, and impact on quality indicators of soil health. Also, main organizational forms of enterprises that provide equipment rental services or perform fieldwork were analyzed. Proposals were made regarding a merger of existing enterprises into agro technical centers, which would increase an efficiency of their functioning and cover functions of regional self-government. Also, the most common forms of machinery usage by agricultural enterprises were considered.

Comparison of Repair Costs for Small and Mid-Sizes Farm Machinery in Malaysian Oil Palm Plantation

Farm machinery has been tremendously used to perform laborious tasks and speed-up the in-field operations in Malaysian oil palm plantation. In line with significant increase in farm machinery usage in Malaysian oil palm plantation, hence, repair costs of farm machinery should be well-managed. Failure to do so may result the plantations profits will be affected. This study aims to analyze and compare the current data of repair costs for small and mid-sizes farm machinery that are commonly used in Malaysian oil palm plantation. Besides, this study also aims to update and adapt the values of repair factors for cumulative repair and maintenance (Crm) costs model of farm machinery in Malaysian oil palm plantation. The relevant data were collected through a survey that was carried out at several oil palm plantations in Melaka and Negeri Sembilan states of Malaysia. The findings indicated the common sizes of farm machinery used Malaysian oil palm plantation were in range of small-size (28HP) to mid-size (75HP). It was found that annual average repair costs of mid-size farm machinery was 60.08% higher than the small-size one. Meanwhile, mean ages of mid-size farm machinery was also 80.7 % longer than the small-size one. The values of repairs factors 1 (RF1) and repairs factor 2 (RF2) for cumulative repair and maintenance costs model (Crm) of farm machinery in Malaysian oil palm plantation were 1.4061 and 1.6588, respectively. Conclusively, the findings of study can give a valuable contribution to the oil palm plantations management in developing their strategic planning concerning to the allocation of overall costs of farm machinery.

Optimization of energy consumption and environmental impacts of arecanut production through coupled data envelopment analysis and life cycle assessment

Energy flow and environmental impact are the key factors toward sustainable development of agricultural production. The objective of the current study is to optimize the energy consumption and assess the environmental impacts of arecanut production. The data were collected from 70 arecanut producers from the Goa state of India. The environmental impacts were investigated with a cradle to gate perspective; using, raw materials extraction, manufacture, use, and supply of inputs to the farm. The functional units considered were one tonne of arecanut production (mass-based) and 1-ha area of arecanut (land-based). The data envelopment analysis indicated the average technical efficiency of arecanut farms as 0.89, implying the potential of saving the resources to the tune of 11% with a mean economic saving of 413 $ ha−1 year−1 without reducing the arecanut yield. Human labor, irrigation, manures, and chemical fertilizers were the major energy consumers in the system. The life cycle assessment indicated on-farm emissions as the hotspot for the respiratory inorganics, terrestrial acid/nutria, and aquatic acidification impact categories. Arecanut production had the highest negative impact on human health followed by ecosystem quality. The global warming potential of arecanut production works out to be 959.87 and 2399.25 kg CO2 eq. per tonne and per hectare basis, respectively. In conclusion, efficient use of inputs in synchrony with crop requirement, advance irrigation methods, and efficient machinery usage may be adopted to curtail the environmental impact of arecanut production in the region.

Effects of row deep tillage for the growth base formed by piling up soil in damp lowlands behind coastal sand dunes to construct coastal disaster prevention forest belts on the Kujukuri coastline, Japan

ABSTRACT To successfully afforest coastal forest belts ensuring high disaster prevention, growth bases for them have been constructed by piling up soil in the low wetlands along the Kujukuri coastline. Ground surfaces in such bases are often covered with water because of soil compaction, leaving them susceptible to stagnant water. Water stagnation in soil is problematic, potentially interfering with afforesting coastal forests. Therefore, row deep tillage was conducted for parts of growth bases to combat the poor physical properties of the existing soil. Here, we surveyed soil profiles and measured vertical soil hardness distribution in two forest stands with piling up soil to evaluate the effectiveness of tillage for man-made soil. Soil hardness measurements indicated that the vertical areas with ‘soft’ and ‘hard/consolidated’ soil alternately appeared in growth base profiles. Generally, soil of the dense and very hard layers was apt to be formed by strong compaction of the filled-up soil because of heavy machinery usage during growth base preparation. Such dense and hard soils in the untilled areas of the profiles were also observed in this study. By contrast, it was confirmed that row deep tillage drastically improved soil physical properties, i.e., decreased hardness and increased water permeability, because the sequential hardened subsoil layers were well-broken-up. Moreover, it was observed many thick and large roots penetrated deeper layers with deep tillage areas. These results suggest that row deep tillage of hardened soil is quite effective at securing the areas and providing the physical conditions for deeply penetrated roots into deeper soils, which increases healthy root development. They show the effects of soil hardness reduction and water permeability improvement have been maintained for two decades, at least, after construction. These findings will be useful for alleviating some problems of soil compaction, water stagnation, and tree-growth hindrance that have been encountered on afforestation sites with man-made soil.

Present Status of Farm Power and Machinery Usage in Bangladesh

Present Status of Farm Power and Machinery Usage in Bangladesh

English

Due to the latest expansion on Brazilian agricultural area, there has been growing demand for field machinery usage aiming at increasing operational efficiency along with cost reduction on production as well as searching for improvement of working conditions. This paper aimed at ergonomic characterization comparing three models of agricultural harvesters on sugar cane plantations in order to provide information to help decision takers. Each harvester was analysed in 157 items. Results showed that ergonomic design in the three analyzed harvesters had high safety level to operators. Nevertheless, there is the necessity of improvement in some analysed items within operator’s working place. Key words: Anthropometry, agricultural mechanization, ergonomics, Saccharum species, safety.

Pipeline Networks E-modelling Based on CityComTM Technology: Experience of Industrial Implementation for Large Water-supply Systems

In the article below the author describes best practices of his company's 25-years experience in the field of development and industrial implementation of complex corporate-level software systems for solutions to everyday production and planning tasks in water supply.All software systems described have been developed using the specialized CityCom™ platform that includes instrumentation tools not only for GIS-based inventory and hydro-modeling but also for dispatch management, accident localization control, providing events logs & analysis (flow parameters, damages, works, machinery usage, diagnostics), planning of capital repairs and etc.The basic principle underlying the software systems provided is the main tenet of informatics science: any data has to be identified and stored only once and in one place. So all of the CityCom™ corporate-level projects use a single corporate database that consist of hundreds of tables where all the data is stored in accordance with the above-mentioned principle.The feature of CityCom™ that appears to be most in demand is the ability to perform hydraulic modeling with no limits imposed on the following parameters: network dimension, number of loops, number of sources and pump stations working simultaneously. However, a key feature of CityCom™ hydro-modeling instrumentation is that it can be used not as «standalone» application but as an integral part of a complex system combining all aspects of water-supply enterprise data modeling solution.The economic advantages of its implementation are ensured by:- optimizing of pipeline networks topology and parameters (reconstructions and switching);- optimizing of hydraulic modes according to diurnal fluctuations of water consumption (dispatching of current switches and pump stations control);- reducing the number of accidents as well as defects and damages (10-12% per year during the first 5-6 years, then stabilizing) and as a result, reducing the cost of repairs;- reducing of potable water loss down to 5..6% of water supply volume;- improving ergonomics and staff productivity.All implementations for water supply and sewerage systems are located in Russia. Largest of them in terms of scale are in the cities (population / pipelines network length): Nizhny Novgorod (1.300.000/5.000km), Novokuznetsk (550.000/1.800km), Naberezhnye Chelny (530.000/ 1.400km), Yoshkar-Ola (270.000/1.300km).Payback of expenses for implementation of the above has made from 2 to 5 years.

Surface Runoff and Tile Drainage Transport of Phosphorus in the Midwestern United States

The midwestern United States offers some of the most productive agricultural soils in the world. Given the cool humid climate, much of the region would not be able to support agriculture without subsurface (tile) drainage because high water tables may damage crops and prevent machinery usage in fields at critical times. Although drainage is designed to remove excess soil water as quickly as possible, it can also rapidly transport agrochemicals, including phosphorus (P). This paper illustrates the potential importance of tile drainage for P transport throughout the midwestern United States. Surface runoff and tile drainage from fields in the St. Joseph River Watershed in northeastern Indiana have been monitored since 2008. Although the traditional concept of tile drainage has been that it slowly removes soil matrix flow, peak tile discharge occurred at the same time as peak surface runoff, which demonstrates a strong surface connection through macropore flow. On our research fields, 49% of soluble P and 48% of total P losses occurred via tile discharge. Edge-of-field soluble P and total P areal loads often exceeded watershed-scale areal loadings from the Maumee River, the primary source of nutrients to the western basin of Lake Erie, where algal blooms have been a pervasive problem for the last 10 yr. As farmers, researchers, and policymakers search for treatments to reduce P loading to surface waters, the present work demonstrates that treating only surface runoff may not be sufficient to reach the goal of 41% reduction in P loading for the Lake Erie Basin.

Pharmacognostical and phytochemical standardization of Baladi churna- A polyherbal formulation

Baladi Churna described by Acharya Bhavprkash in Vandhyatva (infertility). Endometrium dysfunction is the prime cause of Infertility among the world Baladi Churna is useful in patients especially having implantation failure due to defective endometrium, which is known as Kshetra deformity in Ayurveda. So a new pharmaceutical preparation Baladi churna was tried to standardize which is economical in terms of time and machinery usage. The present work was carried out to standardize the finished product of to confirm Baladi Churna entity, quality and purity. The presence of trichomes, spiral vessels, pollen grains were the characteristic features observed in the microscopy of the prepared drug. Phyto-chemical analysis showed Loss on drying 8.24% w/w, ash value 9 %w/w, water soluble extract 46.3 % w/w and pH 6.5. HPTLC of Baladi Churna is the preliminary quantitative analysis which shows 11 prominent spots in UV 254 nm and 10 prominent spots 366 nm. Baladi Churna, a polyherbal formulation of 6 ingredients was prepared and HPTLC finger print profile was developed and it can be considered pharmacopial standard of Baladi Churna.

Pharmacognostical and phytochemical standardization of Baladi churna- A polyherbal formulation

Baladi Churna described by Acharya Bhavprkash in Vandhyatva (infertility). Endometrium dysfunction is the prime cause of Infertility among the world Baladi Churna is useful in patients especially having implantation failure due to defective endometrium, which is known as Kshetra deformity in Ayurveda. So a new pharmaceutical preparation Baladi churna was tried to standardize which is economical in terms of time and machinery usage. The present work was carried out to standardize the finished product of to confirm Baladi Churna entity, quality and purity. The presence of trichomes, spiral vessels, pollen grains were the characteristic features observed in the microscopy of the prepared drug. Phyto-chemical analysis showed Loss on drying 8.24% w/w, ash value 9 %w/w, water soluble extract 46.3 % w/w and pH 6.5. HPTLC of Baladi Churna is the preliminary quantitative analysis which shows 11 prominent spots in UV 254 nm and 10 prominent spots 366 nm. Baladi Churna, a polyherbal formulation of 6 ingredients was prepared and HPTLC finger print profile was developed and it can be considered pharmacopial standard of Baladi Churna.

Application of predictive control methods for Radio telescope disk rotation control

Radio telescope (RT) installations are highly valuable assets and during the period of their service life they need regular repair and maintenance to be carried out for delivering satisfactory performance and minimizing downtime. Same down time can be expected during machinery usage. Constant control of telescope rotation angle is done manually using visual inspection of hardware. The accuracy of this procedure is very low, therefore, automation and computer control systems are required. With the growing automation technologies, predictive control can prove to be a better approach than the traditionally applied visual inspection policy and linear control models. In this paper, Irbene Radio telescope RT-16 disk rotation control motors are analysed using control voltage from the converters. Retrieved data from the small DC motor is used for the predictive control approach using two different methods: a neural network trained with Basic Levenberg-Marquardt method and a linear model. A multilayer perceptron network approach is used for prediction of the indicator voltage output which affects the monitoring of the disk rotating angle. Finally, an experimental control system was proposed and installed using National Instruments equipment.

The Influence of Labor Price Change on Agricultural Machinery Usage in Chinese Agriculture

The substitution between rural labor and machinery has been a key determinant of farm production, structure, and efficiency in most developed countries and is expected to play a key role in shaping the future of Chinese agriculture. Using disaggregated farm‐level data from Hebei and Shandong provinces of China, we calculated the Allen and Morishima elasticities of substitution between labor and machinery. These elasticities were based on seemingly unrelated regressions and three‐stage least squares estimates of the translog cost function and input cost share functions. In contrast to previous studies, we dissaggregate machinery inputs into three categories: large, medium, and small. In addition, the issue of endogeneity in output quantity and input prices is also addressed. The results show strong evidence of substitution between labor and the three categories of machinery inputs. The findings also support substitution among the three categories of machinery themselves.

No-till in northern, western and south-western Europe: A review of problems and opportunities for crop production and the environment

Recent literature on no-till is reviewed with particular emphasis on research on commercial uptake and environmental concerns in northern, western and south-western Europe. Increased interest in no-till, and minimum or reduced tillage, results from changes in the economic circumstances of crop production, the opportunity to increase the area of more profitable autumn-sown crops and increased concern about environmental damage associated with soil inversion by ploughing. Highly contrasting soil and climate types within and between these regions exert a strong influence on the success of no-till. While no-till may often result in crop yields which equal or exceed those obtained after ploughing, modest reductions in yield may be tolerated if production costs are lower than with ploughing. The relative costs of fuel and herbicides have changed appreciably in recent years making no-till more attractive commercially. While effective weed control is an essential aspect of no-till, current herbicide technology may not yet fully achieve this. In northern regions no-till usually allows earlier drilling of winter-sown crops but will give lower soil temperature and higher moisture content in spring, causing delayed drilling of spring-sown crops. No-till soils have greater bulk density and bearing capacity than ploughed soils with a pronounced vertical orientation of macroporosity allowing penetration of roots and water, especially in view of the increased population of deep-burrowing earthworms. Particular care must be taken with no-till to minimise soil damage at harvest and to ensure the even distribution of crop residues prior to drilling. Reduced erosion and runoff after adoption of no-till are widely observed and are of particular importance in southwestern Europe. No-till reduces losses of phosphorus in runoff and, in some cases, reduces the loss of nitrate through leaching. Emissions of greenhouse gases CO 2 and N 2O from no-till soils are highly variable and depend on complex interactions of soil properties. Emission of CO 2 from fuel during machinery usage is always appreciably reduced with no-till. Increased soil organic carbon in surface layers of no-till soils is widely found but may not be associated with increased carbon sequestration throughout the profile. The evaluation of the relative carbon balance for no-till and ploughing depends upon complex inter-relationships between soil and climate factors which are as yet poorly understood. Adoption of no-till could be encouraged by government financial assistance in recognition of environmental benefits, although future restrictions on the use of herbicides may be a deterrent. Opportunities for further research on no-till are outlined.

Workers' compensation experience of Colorado agriculture workers, 2000–2004

Agriculture is among the most hazardous of occupations. The lack of information regarding agriculture injuries or fatalities has been recognized as an obstacle for effective injury prevention. Workers' compensation claims data for non-fatal injuries among agriculture and agri-business workers in the State of Colorado between the years of 2000 and 2004. Workers' compensation claims are utilized to estimate injury claim incidence rates, determine the distributions of sources, causes, types and body locations of injuries, and estimate the costs of these injuries. Colorado agriculture and agri-business workers (e.g., cattle dealers, cattle or livestock raisers, dairy farmers) have high rates of injury claims, especially in sectors that involve interaction with animals or livestock. Grain milling operations had a high rate of injury claims among agri-business operations. Injuries related to animals, strains, machinery, and falls or slips were the most frequent among all occupations analyzed. Understanding the occurrence of injuries among Colorado agriculture and agri-business workers is critical to implementing and evaluating effective intervention programs for specific agriculture-related occupations. The development of safety interventions that address the worker-animal interface, fall protection systems, machinery usage, and overexertion prevention strategies is recommended.