Low back pain related to bowing posture of greenhouse farmers

Abstract

Farming by means of greenhouses has spread in different parts of Japan during the past 20 years. Low back pain, an important health problem for farmers, affects those working inside a greenhouse as a result of their taking up particular postures. In order to analyze ergonomic problems of greenhouse farming relevant to low back pain, localized fatigue complaints and parts of the body where fatigue was felt during fruit picking were studied among 49 female farmers engaged in greenhouse strawberry culture and 53 female farmers engaged in greenhouse eggplant culture. Furthermore, the bowing posture for strawberry picking was compared with that of eggplant picking using newly devised posture-pattern recording equipment. More than 50% of strawberry or eggplant farmers complained of fatigue in the lower back and shoulders. The prevalence of low back pain was significantly higher among strawberry farmers than among eggplant farmers, probably due to the deep bowing posture of the farmer during picking work. The new posture-pattern recording equipment proved useful for investigating changes of work postures.