# A Review on Ergonomics in Agriculture. Part I: Manual Operations
## 3 Results
### Literature Survey
#### 3.2.1 Harvesting  
Harvesting is defined as the procedure of gathering crops from the fields and putting them to secure sites for storage, processing, and consumption. In small farms (especially in developing countries), greenhouses, and several horticultural crops, such as vegetables, minimal mechanization takes place [8]. On large farms, however, harvesting is carried out with expensive and sophisticated machinery, such as modern combine harvesters. In this subsection, the studies dealing with MSDs coming from manual harvesting are briefly analyzed. According to our survey, 13 journal papers were found to be associated with this subject. [PERSON] et al. [36] and [PERSON] et al. [37] investigated the potential MSDs originated from tomato and banana harvesting, respectively. The former study revealed that workers showed an alarming risk exposure due to the repetitive activities of the upper limbs, while the replacing of manual with  
Figure 4: Keyword information clustering of the relevant papers. optoelectronic selection was thought to eliminate the risk for MSDs. In [37], pains at the regions of the spine and hips were reported. Furthermore, risks factors associated with lateral and forward trunk flexion, flexion and abduction of the shoulders, cervical protrusion, awkward postures of the wrists, and repetitive movements were found. In addition, [PERSON] et al. [38] and [PERSON] et al. [39] examined the low back pain among tobacco farmers of Brazil and Thai rubber farmers, respectively. Both studies revealed that exposure to pesticides was associated with the low back discomfort. Indeed, the pesticides can cause impairment to nerves and, thus, intensify the pain [40]. Moreover, in [38], the increasing of age, the exposure to labor-intensive tasks, the awkward postures, and the green tobacco sickness were identified as possible risk factors, whereas in [39], primary school education, Body Mass Index, and kneeling were also found to be risk factors. [PERSON] et al. [41] and [PERSON] [42] focused on the MSDs of apple harvesting workers. In [41], the musculoskeletal strains and surface pressures were measured for investigating the favorable work conditions in terms of minimum risks for MSDs along with a high quality of apples. [PERSON] & [PERSON] [42] tried to identify solutions by applying break times and ergonomic techniques. In [41], it was concluded that inattentive workers can simply surpass the acceptable pressure limits, whereas in [42], the authors found that rest breaks coupled with ergonomic positions can benefit the workers. Introduce of more ergonomic tools and rest breaks was also suggested by [PERSON] et al. [43]. In [43], the authors identified the main risk factors connected to MSDs during manual harvesting in Indian area. Seventy-seven percent of the participants reported pain at the low back, shoulders, neck, hands, wrists, and fingers with aging principally being related to all body pains apart from the neck and shoulders. Gender was also a significant risk factor with male workers exhibiting discomfort to a greater extent than female workers. [PERSON] & [PERSON] through three studies [35; 44; 45], evaluated a weight transfer device for attenuating low back disorders during stooping in a laboratory environment to imitate harvesting of low-growing crops. Electrogoniometers, microelectromechanical accelerometers, and surface electromyographs were used to measure movements of the knee and ankle; thoracic and lumbar flexion; and the electrical activity produced by tibialis anterior muscles, rectus abdominis, biceps femoris, and erector spinae. Overall, it was concluded that the device can be advantageous for workers who routinely work on stooped posture and lessen the risk of experiencing low back disorders. Furthermore, based on their above encouraging results, they developed subject-specific whole-body musculoskeletal models in [46] to estimate loads on the passive tissues of the leg joints and back.