Occupational stress among farming people

During the last 25 years, agricultural sector has gone through lot of changes and it also found to be one of the potential areas for stress. Greater use of automation technology, more use of organic production, decrease price for agricultural products and new complicated legislations have made the life of farmers more stressful one. In this study an attempt is made to find out the potential factors which cause stress and made the life of farming community more miserable. Results have clearly indicated that the occupation farming leads to stress due to financial, weather, work overload, social interaction and farm hassles. It is inferred that all the selected dimensions are producing either high or medium level of stress to farming people. It is also found that stress due to financial factors is found to be slightly higher than other stresses. Key words: farm stress; financial stresses; weather; farm hassles; social interaction DOI: 10.4038/jas.v4i3.1650 The Journal of Agricultural Sciences , 2009, vol. 4, no. 3 pp.115-125