Physical Discomfort Analysis of Farmers During Plucking Vegetable Using Firefly Algorithm

Agricultural workers, during farming, have to perform many activities in hot summer, heavy rain, and in cold winter. The activities performed require a high physical workload. Farming activities are repetitive in nature and are continuously performed for 7 to 8 h. So, in many cases, farmers suffer from discomfort and body pain while performing farming activities. Hence, the rate of hazards, accidents, and MSDs (musculoskeletal disorders) is very high due to discomfort and needs ergonomic analysis. Suzanne Rodgers, an ergonomic tool, has applied after taking out a complete literature survey and studying plucking activity. Further, the firefly algorithm has been used to predict the discomfort levels of farmers during the plucking of vegetables in a static posture in agricultural fields based on body parts such as shoulders, arms, back, hand, legs, and feet, respectively. The output of the prediction shows that discomfort is maximum when plucking vegetables, and the firefly algorithm result shows the best optimal value of 1.4629; it shows that the predicted discomfort level in the model for farmers are highly impacting the body parts and necessary action is essential for their safety. The correlation results of body parts such as shoulders, arms, back, hands, legs, and feet show that the leg has the highest correlation.