The attention paid to the use of pesticides has increased notably in recent years as demonstrated by the issue of laws and regulations requiring their safe and environmentally-conscious use (e.g. Directive 2009/128/EC and Regulation (EC) no. 1272/2008). Despite the benefits that can be achieved by pursuing the targets of stricter legislative framework, the difficulties for farmers in complying with it are remarkable, especially for small-sized companies. In fact, in contrast to other occupational health and safety (OHS) contexts, in the case of pesticides even a preliminary analysis on the relationship between pesticide use and the consequent exposure risks for the workers is a complex task. In order to reduce the above-mentioned gap, the present study is focused on the development of an easy-to-use tool for carrying out occupational risk assessment of agricultural activities related to the use of pesticides. The procedure was developed by starting from the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) approach and its improvements, and continuing to the thorough development of a tool for preliminary risk assessment, providing a simplified model for its practical application by farmers. A case study concerning olive cultivation was used for its first verification. The results achieved should be considered as an initial step for the promotion of safer practices when using pesticides, providing a consistent base for their further validation.

Recently, standards and regulations concerning occupational safety have become more and more rigorous. Nevertheless, the number of accidents and victims has not decreased significantly, as reported by official statistics. In Italy, the agricultural sector is certainly one of the most affected by this situation, especially taking into account the occurrence of serious injuries and fatalities related to the use of tractors. The main reasons for such a situation can be ascribed to the peculiarities of agricultural operations. Therefore, when analyzing the root causes of agricultural accidents, a user-centered approach is needed in order to make the development of health and safety interventions easier and more effective. Based on this, the present paper proposes a practical case study research focused on integrating the factor of human error into the risk assessment procedures of agricultural activities in vineyard cultivation. Such an approach allowed us to consider the impact of human error—while performing work activities (e.g., the use of a tractor)—on hazards and related hazardous events in a thorough manner. The proposed approach represents a novelty in the sector of the safety assessment of agricultural activities, providing a first valuable basis for further analysis and implementation by researchers and practitioners.

The use of pesticides in agriculture is a significant problem at a global level, not only from an environmental perspective but also from the farmers’ health and safety point of view. In the literature, several studies have discussed the safe behavior and risk perception of farmers. However, human errors when dealing with pesticides and the related work equipment are rarely considered. To reduce this research gap, a study of the human safety errors in pesticide use based on hierarchical task analysis is proposed. In particular, such a bottom-up approach was applied to vineyard cultivation and considered all the activities that operators carry out when using pesticides. The results of this study showed that most of the identified human errors were action errors, i.e., potential failures of the operator in completing the activity successfully. In addition, retrieval and checking errors resulted in being rather common. These outputs shed light on the gap between the information received and the practical need for operators to reduce their failure to perform specific activities. Therefore, while the present study augments current knowledge on the safe use of pesticides, further research is needed to address human errors in agricultural activities, thus extending these results to a larger sample size as well as to other cultivation types.

Although it is often assumed that physically disabled individuals have different behaviors towards environment, there has been very little empirical evidence supporting this statement. For this reason, this study aimed to explain the different behaviors and preferences of potential users by analyzing their attitudes towards an electric vehicle specifically designed for rural mobility. In other words, this study analyzed both the willingness of disabled people to drive an electric vehicle and their willingness to pay (WTP) for such a vehicle. A total of 209 data were collected from a sample of physically disabled consumers in Italy using a structured questionnaire. Therefore, a stated preferences Italian dataset was used, and an exploratory factor analysis, a probit model, and an ordered logit regression model were applied. The results suggested that to encourage the use of electric cars for rural mobility, it should be necessary to manage environmental concerns, vehicle-related attributes, attitudes towards eco-friendly cars, people’s emotional experience, and their purchase intention. In addition, to improve customer intention, development plans and service features must be synergistically organized to mutually support each other.

The use of agricultural tractors is a major concern in agriculture safety due to the high level of risk of loss of stability combined with the frequent absence of passive safety devices such as rollover protective structures (ROPSs). Indeed, although in most cases the ROPS is installed, when working in vineyards, orchards, or in other cases of limited crop height, the tractor is usually equipped with a foldable ROPS (FROPS), which is often misused because the effort needed for raising/lowering is excessive and the locking procedure is time-consuming. Thus, the goal of this research is to investigate the problem from the ergonomics point of view, developing a support system capable of facilitating FROPS operations. The research outcome consists of the development of a retrofitted full assistance system (FAS) for lowering/raising the FROPS by means of electric actuators. Additionally, an automatic locking device (ALD) was also developed to safely and automatically lock the FROPS. Both the FAS and ALD systems were implemented following a reverse-engineering approach, while their final validation was performed by means of a real prototype tested in a laboratory. The results achieved can contribute to expanding knowledge on human-centered research to improve safety in agriculture and thus social issues of sustainable agricultural systems.

An internationally acknowledged requirement is to analyze and provide technical solutions for prevention and safety during the use and maintenance of manure spreader wagons. Injuries statistics data and specific studies show that particular constructive criticalities have been identified on these machines, which are the cause of serious and often fatal accidents. These accidents particularly occur during the washing and maintenance phases—especially when such practices are carried out inside the hopper when the rotating parts of the machine are in action. The current technical standards and the various safety requirements under consideration have not always been effective for protecting workers. To this end, the use of SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) allowed us to highlight critical and positive aspects of the different solutions studied for reducing the risk due to contact with the rotating parts. The selected and tested solution consists of a decoupling system automatically activated when the wheels of the wagon are not moving. Such a solution prevents the contact with the moving rotating parts of the machine when the worker is inside the hopper. This mechatronic solution allowed us to obtain a prototype that has led to the resolution of the issues related to the use of the wagon itself: in fact, the system guarantees the stopping of manure spreading organs in about 12 s from the moment of the wheels stopping.