Agricultural Equipment Operators
Drive and control equipment to support agricultural activities such as tilling soil; planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops; feeding and herding livestock; or removing animal waste. May perform tasks such as crop baling or hay bucking. May operate stationary equipment to perform post-harvest tasks such as husking, shelling, threshing, and ginning.
28,500 people do this job in the US. $41,730 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 0%
- 0%
- 100%
Measured, from Anthropic's usage data (2025). Counts help on part of a task.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 4.4 h long four times in five.
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this job's working time was within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 0%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 0%. Today's estimate: 0%.
A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.
The tasks
Sorted by . 17 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operate or tend equipment used in agricultural production, such as tractors, combines, and irrigation equipment.Done daily by most who do it. | 26% | 3.3 h50 min to 1 work day | Stays with people | |
| Operate towed machines such as seed drills or manure spreaders to plant, fertilize, dust, and spray crops.Done daily by most who do it. | 16% | 3.3 h50 min to 1 work day | Stays with people | |
| Walk beside or ride on planting machines while inserting plants in planter mechanisms at specified intervals.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 2.5 h50 min to 6.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Irrigate soil, using portable pipes or ditch systems, and maintain ditches or pipes and pumps.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 1.7 h25 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Adjust, repair, and service farm machinery and notify supervisors when machinery malfunctions.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 1.3 h25 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Direct and monitor the activities of work crews engaged in planting, weeding, or harvesting activities.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 2.5 h50 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Drive trucks to haul crops, supplies, tools, or farm workers.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 1.3 h25 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Load and unload crops or containers of materials, manually or using conveyors, handtrucks, forklifts, or transfer augers.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 5% | 38 min13 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Observe and listen to machinery operation to detect equipment malfunctions.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 13 min4 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Position boxes or attach bags at discharge ends of machinery to catch products, removing and closing full containers.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 4% | 33 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Mix specified materials or chemicals, and dump solutions, powders, or seeds into planter or sprayer machinery.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 3% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Attach farm implements such as plows, discs, sprayers, or harvesters to tractors, using bolts and hand tools.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 3% | 25 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people |
Within reach, per task: the share of the task's time whose instances are short enough for a model to finish at the chosen date, pace and reliability. Half by: the date half of that time comes within reach.
Jobs that share skills with this one
From O*NET's related occupations. Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
- Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse4% now, 4% by 2028
- Machine Feeders and Offbearers5% now, 5% by 2028
- Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders6% now, 6% by 2028
- Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders14% now, 14% by 2028
- Milling and Planing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic18% now, 18% by 2028
- Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders6% now, 6% by 2028
Where this job works
The industry groups that employ the most of it (BLS, May 2025).
Where the most of these jobs are
The metro areas with the most people in it (BLS, May 2025).