Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse
Manually plant, cultivate, and harvest vegetables, fruits, nuts, horticultural specialties, and field crops. Use hand tools, such as shovels, trowels, hoes, tampers, pruning hooks, shears, and knives. Duties may include tilling soil and applying fertilizers; transplanting, weeding, thinning, or pruning crops; applying pesticides; or cleaning, grading, sorting, packing, and loading harvested products. May construct trellises, repair fences and farm buildings, or participate in irrigation activities.
265,500 people do this job in the US. $35,660 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 4%
- 0%
- 96%
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, 1%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 4%. Today's estimate: 4%.
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 . 27 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct and monitor the work of casual and seasonal help during planting and harvesting.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 18% | 1.7 h50 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Participate in the inspection, grading, sorting, storage, and post-harvest treatment of crops.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 10% | 1.3 h25 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Repair and maintain farm vehicles, implements, and mechanical equipment.Done daily by most who do it. | 10% | 1.7 h25 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Operate tractors, tractor-drawn machinery, and self-propelled machinery to plow, harrow and fertilize soil, or to plant, cultivate, spray and harvest crops.Done daily by most who do it. | 9% | 2.1 h50 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Sell and deliver plants and flowers to customers.Done more than monthly by most who do it. | 5% | 50 min25 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Plant, spray, weed, fertilize, water, and prune plants, shrubs, and trees, using gardening tools. | 5% | 2.5 h38 min to 6.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Harvest fruits and vegetables by hand.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 5% | 1.7 h25 min to 4.2 h | Stays with people | |
| Load agricultural products into trucks, and drive trucks to market or storage facilities.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 1.7 h38 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Repair farm buildings, fences, and other structures.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 4% | 3.3 h50 min to 1.7 work days | Stays with people | |
| Harvest plants, and transplant or pot and label them.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 4% | 50 min17 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Clean work areas, and maintain grounds and landscaping.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 4% | 50 min17 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Set up and operate irrigation equipment.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 1.3 h25 min to 3.3 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.
- Agricultural Equipment Operators0% now, 0% by 2028
- Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals2% now, 2% by 2028
- Graders and Sorters, Agricultural Products7% now, 7% by 2028
- Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers0% now, 0% by 2028
- Pesticide Handlers, Sprayers, and Applicators, Vegetation18% now, 18% by 2028
- Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still 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).