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Top1. Introduction
Agriculture plays an important role in the growth of Indian economy and it also contributes about 15% to the country’s GDP and offers employment opportunity to about 50% of its population. Rice is considered as the most common food consumed partially by the world’s seven billion people and 90% of the total worldwide rice production is consumed in Asia only. The Asian countries where rice is mostly cultivated are India, Bangladesh, China, Srilanka, Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam. As rice cultivation requires huge amount of water which is about thrice that of maize and wheat, so it is best suited to regions with high rainfall or adequate irrigation water. Different tools and equipment meant for agricultural appliances are used in cultivation process. These tools and equipment are either manually or mechanically operated. And it has been reported by different studies that traditional tools and equipment are mostly used by the farmers.
Although there have been developments in new technologies, but there is a lack of adoption of those technologies by farmers. For instance, lack of technical assistance, non-contact by extension agents, non-trips to field, lack of agricultural training and lack of adequate agricultural literature, were identified as the constraints for farmers (Bhatt, 2005). Jaganathan et al. (2009) have reported that the agricultural success depends upon the beneficial mindset of the farmers. Further they observed the variables such as innovativeness, mass-media exposures, self-esteem, marketplace belief, environmental orientation, cognizance and expertise confirmed a significant and positive relationship with attitude in the direction of natural farming. Tiwari et al. (2010) have found out that the adoption of zero tillage technology in Punjab was mainly due to uncooperativeness among farmers in sharing their experiences and peer community pressure. Singh et al. (2010) have reported the constraints for adoption of new technologies in rice production as lack of motivations, complexities in operational methods, lack of knowledge and awareness. Similarly, Singh and Varshney (2010) have reported that there was an average level of overall adoption of new technologies by most of the farmers, such as in weedicides application, pests & diseases management in nursery. Furthermore they have also identified the major constraints as non-availability in varieties for high yielding, expensive labor, uncertainty in the new technology, poor extension activities at the village level, and inappropriate communication systems. The present study aims to identify and explore the prevalence of occupational health and safety issues, disorders and discomforts among the farmers of Odisha in India.