How to Save Effort in Farm Work: Tips and Tools from Ergonomics

In 2015, through a stroke of fortune, I found my way to an intentional community in southern Germany and encountered organic farming for the first time. Since then, I have worked at three organic farms in succession, first as a volunteer and then as an agricultural apprentice with Demeter im Norden. All told, I spent three years working on German farms.

After returning home, my curiosity about working methods on organic farms in China led me to a farm not far from my family’s home, where I spent a month experiencing the work firsthand. I found that although the tasks were broadly the same, the way the work was carried out differed considerably from what I had learned in Germany.

Some of the young people working on the farm had never grown crops before. They would arrive eager and full of enthusiasm, keen to have a go, but after a short while their backs would start aching and they would conclude that farming was simply too grueling. In truth, this was largely because they lacked experience, used incorrect working posture, and had unsuitable tools — so that farm work felt both exhausting and damaging to the body.

Interestingly, despite all working on the same farm, the older women who had done farm work for half a lifetime showed none of the young people’s complaints. On closer observation, I realised this was not because they were physically stronger, but because they knew how to work in a way that was kinder to the body, and how to complete tasks faster and with less effort.

In fact, physical labour demands not only deft hands but a thinking mind. After returning home, I revisited ergonomics and read it more carefully, discovering that much of the hardship in agricultural work is entirely avoidable. Cultivating the right mindset for physical work allows you to get twice the results for half the effort — with less strain and greater efficiency.

I. I. Why Do Farmers Get Injured During Labour?

When I was attending vocational training for farmers in Germany, my class instructor gave an example to explain why we needed to study ergonomics: if you stand hunched over a low washbasin brushing your teeth, even just three minutes a day will do damage to your lower back. So you should find ways to adjust your posture — for instance, drop into a horse stance while brushing (the wide-legged squat from martial arts), lowering your centre of gravity so that you no longer need to bend.

I had studied ergonomics at university, but I had always assumed it was something needed only by professional designers. In reality, the aim of ergonomics is to find the optimal fit between the human body and working conditions. Designers simply provide sensible equipment; workers too must learn, depending on the situation, to actively improve the conditions around them — completing tasks in a way that saves time and effort while also preventing bodily injury.

With regard to agricultural workers, dedicated ergonomics research has been carried out abroad for quite some time. The US Department of Health and Human Services, for example, has published a booklet titled Simple Solutions: Ergonomics For Farmworkers. It notes that prolonged, repetitive engagement in actions such as forceful gripping, kneeling, lifting, squatting, bending, and twisting at work may lead to sprains, strains, and back pain [1].

[1] In medical terminology, this is referred to as “Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders” (WMSD).

Moreover, even simple actions that appear harmless — such as reaching out to grab an object or pressing down on a tool — can also lead to injury over time if performed in an incorrect posture. That is why our instructor gave us the tooth-brushing example.

So how does one work efficiently without sustaining injury? I believe there are at least two lessons to learn: pay attention to how you work; and learn to choose and use the right tools.

II. Pay Attention to How You Work

The reason the older women on the farm were able to save effort was that they had built up decades of experience. Though they had never studied ergonomics, they had learned how to work. Over these past few years of farm work, I too have gathered a few insights of my own.

1. Keep Yourself in a Comfortable Posture as Much as Possible.

If your posture is uncomfortable, try adjusting it — unless it is absolutely unavoidable, do not keep your body in an uncomfortable position for too long. Whether you are working seated or standing, the height of your work surface should suit you. Try to avoid working bent over.

For example, when weeding, to avoid bending over, try to stand and work with a hoe — this places less strain on the lower back. If the weeds are particularly stubborn and hard to remove with a hoe, I will kneel down and pull them by hand, or use a small hand-held hoe. Even when kneeling, you should take care to protect yourself. If prolonged kneeling causes knee pain, you can place a sheet of hard cardboard beneath your knees or use knee pads designed for manual work.

Sometimes you also need to create the right conditions for yourself. When I used to harvest kale on the farm, we would stack two plastic crates on the ground to form a makeshift workbench, then set a harvesting crate on top to hold the kale. This way, we avoided bending over while packing.

2. Alternate Repetitive Tasks with Less Repetitive Ones as Much as Possible.

When planning your work, try to vary the types of tasks you perform — sit for a while, stand for a while, walk about for a while. If repetitive work is unavoidable, pause at regular intervals to rest, do a little gentle movement, and give your body sufficient time to recover. Weeding, for instance, often requires repeating the same motion for several hours on end; in such cases, you could gather the pulled weeds every half hour and carry them to the compost area — this way, you get your body moving and take a break while still making progress on the task.

3. Make Use of External Assistance.

In my ergonomics class, the instructor taught us the simplest principle: when a load is too heavy — more than 25 or 30 kg — even if you can manage to shift it on your own, you should ask someone to help you carry it. Beyond human strength, you can also make use of the power of tools. Where conditions allow, use a hand trolley or mechanical transport. On a farm, for example, a wheelbarrow, a two-wheel flatbed cart, a forklift, and even a tractor or engineering vehicle can all make the actual work considerably less strenuous.

4. Find a Method That Suits You.

When working on the farm, one task involved loading potatoes into a large steamer vat, where they would be steamed and then fed to the pigs. A colleague taught me to scoop potatoes up from the ground with a large shovel and toss them into the vat, which stood over a metre high, but this motion was particularly strenuous for me. So I took to loading the potatoes into plastic crates first, then lifting the crates and tipping them into the big vat. This approach may look clumsy, but it suits my strength best.

III. The Right Tools: The Farm’s Eighteen Weapons

Beyond how you work, choosing the right tools is equally important. An ill-fitting shovel can, in the end, mean twice the physical effort and a toll on your body.

Everyone’s height, strength, and working habits are different, so I would recommend that each person find the tools that suit them. Before starting a new task, I think about what tool would be appropriate, or try every tool on hand to see which one works best for me.

For example, the forks I used on the farm in Germany can be divided into several types, with slight differences in structure depending on the task at hand. The straighter forks are generally used for gardening, such as digging up root vegetables or small trees. Forks with a slight curve come in two varieties: the three-pronged one is a hay fork, used for handling clean materials such as feed for cattle and sheep; the four-pronged one is a manure fork, used when cleaning out cattle sheds and spreading straw.

On farms back home, I found that the hoe is by far the most-used tool. Its role in the field is much like the kitchen cleaver — it can handle virtually any job. One hoe and you are set anywhere: breaking up the soil, digging trenches, weeding, lifting vegetables — all done with it. I never used a hoe during my time in Germany, so when I first picked one up on a farm in China, I found it very unnatural and felt it was really hard on my lower back. As you swing the hoe forcefully into the ground, your back inevitably absorbs the impact. Among all the farm work I did in Germany, I can scarcely think of a comparable motion — unless you count driving wooden stakes or iron nails into the ground. So I have often wondered: could other tools replace the hoe and spare the body from that kind of strain?

Looking back at the farm tools I used in Germany, there are a few that can perform some of the hoe’s functions — such as this broadfork for tilling and loosening the soil, which on a farm is typically used to prepare growing beds before planting. Loosening the soil with it is less strenuous than with a hoe, it is less destructive to the land than machinery, and it rarely harms the earthworms in the soil. The fork is wide enough that a person can stand on it and, using the full weight of the body, drive it into the earth; pressing down on the handle then levers the soil up naturally. None of this requires bending over — most of the effort comes from the legs and the whole torso.

Beyond loosening the soil, the broadfork actually has many other uses — for instance, harvesting summer-ripened carrots. Carrots are brittle, so if the ground is quite dry, pulling them straight out by hand is liable to snap them. Loosening the soil first with the broadfork (without needing to lever the soil fully up) and then pulling saves effort and keeps the carrots intact. The same principle applies to lifting all kinds of root vegetables. Another example: once seedlings have been raised in the ground, you can use the broadfork to loosen the soil before transplanting, and lift the seedlings out without much effort.

And then there is the small hoe for weeding. Because weeding on the farm is fairly frequent, there are hardly any thick, coarse roots, so the small hoe is perfectly sufficient. My mentor once took the trouble to teach me exactly how to weed with it. You should keep your back roughly straight, standing at a slight angle in front of the growing bed, so that every spot you walk past has been cleared of weeds. The blade should slice through the weeds almost parallel to the soil surface. Someone who wields a hoe well can take away only the weeds, leaving the surface soil undisturbed in place.

Weeding can also be done with a small tool the size of your palm — it fits in a pocket and is wonderfully convenient. Small as the tool may be, I actually find it easier to use for pulling out larger weeds. In particular, when my cervical spine is feeling uncomfortable, I lie face down on the ground and use it to weed, which puts less strain on my neck.

In Germany, there is also a tool called a furrower. Once the growing bed has been prepared, it is used to mark out the planting positions. No vegetable farm can do without one — I even suspect the Germans couldn’t grow vegetables at all without it.

The teeth on the furrower can be shifted left or right to suit different row spacings, or added and removed as needed. The wooden handle pivots from side to side because, in practice, you generally stand at the side of the growing bed and pull diagonally forward — only a tilted handle can ensure the planting line drawn is straight. First, the furrower marks the positions for transplanting; second, it eliminates the need to dig separate planting holes; and third, it lets you work standing up. All in all, it greatly speeds up the transplanting process.

IV. The Farmer’s Joy

Farming is a profession that demands specialist skills, yet it carries joys entirely its own — and the two are inseparable. Learning about weather and soil, understanding plants and animals, knowing how to work in partnership with nature and accept her gifts — that is a joy in itself.

For my part, so long as my body can bear it, physical labour — even the repetitive, seemingly tedious kind — is a pleasure. And this pleasure has its own craft to master: learning to work both efficiently and in comfort. Choosing tools that suit, adapting methods flexibly, and putting them to the test in the field — all of this, for me, is part of the joy of physical labour.

The tools and methods introduced here are merely a brick thrown up to invite jade — a humble offering, nothing more. What I truly hope is that farmers will keep experimenting, setting aside what no longer works and finding fresh approaches suited to their own circumstances. I also hope that more young people with a calling for agriculture will not be shut out by arduous labour, but will truly come to enjoy the pleasure of being a farmer.

Foodthink Says 

Foodthink’s past articles have featured plenty of resourceful folk who’ve adapted their farm tools — Da Hei at Lüwo Farm, Brother Liu at Xiao Liushu Farm, for instance. Everyone has their own unique approach to farm work. Do you have a method that makes labour easier yet more efficient? Share it in the comments below.

The black-and-white images in this article are from Simple Solutions: Ergonomics For Farmworkers

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2001-111/pdfs/2001-111.pdf

Unless otherwise specified, all remaining images and videos are sourced from the internet.

Editor: Wang Hao