Approximately 22,200 women in the United States are employed in agriculture as farm owners, managers, workers, and in other related occupations. Although women employed in agriculture represent a small portion of the total agricultural workforce—less than 15%—this number underestimates the contribution of women to agricultural productivity. Women contribute untold hours of unpaid work on farms.
As informal and formal workers on farms, women are exposed to a multitude of biological, chemical, physical, and mechanical hazards. Occupational diseases in women working on farms will go undiagnosed if a physician assumes she does not work or if a physician is unfamiliar with occupational diseases. Hazards encountered on farms include heavy equipment; enclosed spaces such as silos, grain bins, and manure storage structures; toxic and irritant gases and dusts including carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, anhydrous ammonia, pesticides, endotoxins, fungi, and molds; weather extremes; and animals....
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Suggested Reading
McDuffie, H. H., Dosman, J. A., Semchuk, K. M., Olenchock, S. A., & Sentihilselvan, A. (1995). Agricultural health and safety: Workplace, environment and sustainability. Boca Raton, FL: Lewis.
Messing, K. (1998). One-eyed science: Occupational health and women workers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Murphy, D. (1992). Safety and health for production agriculture. St. Joseph, MO: American Society of Agricultural Engineers.
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© 2004 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers
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Stallones, L. (2004). Agricultural Work. In: Encyclopedia of Women’s Health. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-48113-0_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-48113-0_26
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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