**4.5 Ergonomic hazard**

The science of fitting jobs to workers instead of trying to get the worker to fit the job is known as ergonomics. The occupational hazards resulting from the workstation design and tools are ergonomic hazards. These include fatigue and injury, extreme temperature, discomfort, and pain. It could ultimately lead to musculoskeletal disorder.

**21**

*Occupational Health Hazards Associated with Nigerian Fisheries*

Fisheries refers to the science of producing fish and other aquatic resources for the purpose of providing food for humans and livestock, recreational fishing, and obtaining ornamental fish or fish products such as fish oil [27]. This definition refers to the production of fish and other living organisms in water bodies for the benefit of mankind through consumption, commercial or recreational purposes. In Nigeria, fisheries as a concept is divided into capture and culture fisheries with the capture fisheries further divided into artisanal and industrial fisheries. Artisanal fishery is to the harvesting or capturing of fishes from natural water bodies and ponds by small scale fisher folks using primarily the traditional fishing gears [28]. Some authors [29, 30] regarded it as a nonindustrial fishery covering the activities of small-scale canoes operating in the coastal areas, creeks, lagoons, inshore water, and the inland rivers. The artisanal fishery, though involves the use of crude implements, with little or no access to credit, and subsistence level of operation, contributes the bulkiest proportion up to 90 percent of domestic fish production in

The industrial fisheries are a higher and mechanized level of fish production, which relies heavily on the use of trawling vessels for fishing and shrimping in the territorial and offshore waters [34]. By this definition, it could be implied that industrial fishery is highly capital intensive and involves the use of advanced technologies. As such, it could only be practiced by insignificantly few people. No wonder, Moses [35] submitted that artisanal fishery employs 18 times more fishermen than the industrial fishery. Aquaculture has been defined as the rearing of aquatic organisms (e.g. fish, insects, bivalves, mollusks, crustaceans, and aquatic plants) under controlled or semi-controlled environments (such as ponds, pens, raceways and cages) for the social and economic benefits of mankind and

In Nigeria, although domestic fish production is on the increase, the everincreasing population of the country makes the country a net importer of fish and fish products despite the contribution of both the aquaculture and artisanal fisheries components. Despite the fact that artisanal fishery contributes more to local fish production, one could summarize from different Nigerian fisheries statistics that while production from the capture fisheries is relatively on the decline, production from aquaculture remains on the increase. This was supported by FAO [38] that aquaculture production has been on the increase since 1995. This is why Olaoye et al. [39] regarded aquaculture as the fastest growing livestock production sector in Nigeria. Supporting this claim, Giwa et al. [40] while investigating the trends of fish production in Nigeria submitted that artisanal fishery contributed 77.95 percent of the domestic fish production and that aquaculture maintains the highest growth

The fisheries sub-sector has been recognized as a major economic component, with an estimate of employing more than 8.6 million people directly and additional

**6. Occupational hazards in fisheries: Empirical evidences from Nigeria**

Although occupational health, hazards and safety are the concern of many government agencies and international organizations such as the World Health Organization – WHO, Food and Agriculture Organization - FAO and the International Labour Organization- ILO especially with respect to working in the agriculture sector, little empirical evidences abound on the prevalence of

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94205*

**5. Fisheries in Nigeria**

Nigeria [31–33].

livestock [36, 37].

rate of 12.53 percent.

19.6 million indirectly [41].
