Vol. 8 (5) : September-October 2017 issue
Green Farming Vol. 8 (5) : 1174-1179 ; September-October, 2017
Personal exposure of workers to air-borne dust and micro-organisms during agricultural operations
ANUSHA M.1*, S.S. MEENA2, A.K. MEHTA3, PARUL M.4, SANTOSH5 and A.K. SHARMA6
Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, College of Technology and Engineering, Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture & Technology, Udaipur - 313 001 (Rajasthan)
Designation : 1,4Ph.D. Scholar *(maddalianusha9@gmail.com), 2Asstt. Professor, 3Professor & Head, 5B-Tech Student, 6Professor
Subject : Agriculture Engineering, Farm Machinery, Energy & Power and Process Engineering
Paper No. : P-5398
Total Pages : 6
Received : 24 June 2016
Revised accepted : 11 May 2017
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Citation :
ANUSHA M., S.S. MEENA, A.K. MEHTA, PARUL M., SANTOSH and A.K. SHARMA. 2017. Personal exposure of workers to air-borne dust and micro-organisms during agricultural operations. Green Farming Vol. 8 (5) : 1174-1179 ; September-October, 2017
ABSTRACT
Air-borne dust and microorganisms have been associated mainly with respiratory diseases and farmer's exposure to these hazards is at high risk. Limited information is available on the combined exposure of these hazards. The objective of this study was to determine the personal dust concentration as well as microbial concentration in different agricultural operations like harvesting, threshing, poultry and dairy farms. Exposure to airborne dust and microorganisms was studied using personal dust sampling system. The results showed that the average concentrations of airborne dust in threshing for PM10 ((PM10 = particles with a 50% cut-off aerodynamic diameter of 10 µm) and PM5 (respirable dust) was 0.60-2.64mg/m3 and 0.43-1.51mg/m3. The mean dust concentrations during harvesting for PM10 and PM5 were 3.78 mg/m3 and 1.51 mg/m3. The average dust concentrations inside the dairy farm for PM10 in summer and winter were 0.51-1.64 mg/m3 and 0.34-1.40 mg/m3, for PM5 was 0.44-1.11 mg/m3and 0.27-0.94 mg/m3 respectively. The mean dust concentrations for PM10 inside the poultry farm in summer and winter was 1.60 mg/m3, 1.11 mg/m3 and for PM5 was 1.20 mg/m3, 0.77 mg/m3.The average concentration of total bacteria in dairy farm was, 1.9x106-8.1x106 CFU/m3 in summer, 4.2x105-4.4x107 CFU/m3 in winter and total fungi 8.5x106-4.3x107 in summer, 1.1x104-4.7x107 in winter, respectively. The mean concentration of bacterial cells observed in poultry in summer and winter was 1.7x106 and 3.6 x108 CFU/m3 and the mean concentration of fungal spores was 3.0x107 and 2.4x106 CFU/m3, respectively. During threshing, the average microbial concentration of fungi and bacteria was found to be 1.3x104-5.7x104 CFU/m3 and 1.6x103-6.3x104CFU/m3 respectively whereas during harvesting, the mean microbial concentration of fungi and bacteria was found to be 2.6x105 and 4.03x104 CFU/m3 respectively. The highest concentration of dust was found to be more in case of grain confinements & grain confinements were dominated mostly by fungi, whereas animal confinements by bacteria in winter.
Key words :
Agricultural operations, Bacteria, Dust concentration, Fungi, Harvesting, Threshing.
