Farmworker/laborer

Job description

General Farmworkers and Laborers
Manually plant, cultivate, and harvest vegetables, and fi eld 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.
Specific Job Requirements:
**General Farm Labor Work **
This will include the following activities:
· Remove undesirable and excess growth from crops and/or farm grounds, including the utilization of hand tools to remove weeds.
· Perform general cleanup of farm areas.
· Manually install and remove irrigation drip tape fittings, pipes, and main line.
· Identify and fi x leaks in drip irrigation systems.
· Activities related to onion harvest:
o Remove dirt clods, weeds and debris from harvester, move onion in front of harvester.
o Hand harvest onions, place onions in bags and lay in fi eld to cure.
o Gather bags of onions off the fi elds and dump them into bins
o Sort sacks after harvest
· Activities related to pepper planting and harvest:
o Hand harvest pepper crops, manually pulling peppers from plants
o Move and transport fl ats of pepper plants.
o Ride on transplanter and drop in pepper plants.
o Stamp in planted transplants.
o Field pack peppers in bins and tray and dump onto belt
o Remove dirt clods, weeds and any other debris from belt
· Activities related to squash harvest:
o Utilize hand tools to cut squash from plants
o Place squash on belts and load into bins for transportation
· Activities related to sweet corn harvest:
o Hand harvest sweet corn, manually pulling corn ears from stalks
o Place corn ears on belts or in bins for transportation
· Activities related to the planting and cultivation of hops:
o Remove and Install poles and attach all wires and cables and repair as needed.
o While in a lift above ground manually attach twine to trellis.
o Place metal clips in the ground and affi x twine to clips.
o Fill water tanks as needed to soak hop twine.
o Use cutting tools to divide hop roots, bundle, and place in bins for planting.
o Manually plant hop roots in soil while in a kneeling and stooping position.
o Train hop plant vines to wrap around twine during development.
o Pick up downed vines that have fallen from trellis or have broken strings.

Activities related to the harvesting of hops:
o Operate tractor for top and bottom twine cutting into harvest trucks.
o Ensure hop vines are properly secured in hop harvest truck as cut from trellis cables
o Unload hop harvest trucks at drier facility by attaching vines to hooks/cable for separation of vines.
o Monitor picker operation and sweeping of excess leaves.
o Assist supervisors in the repair and maintenance of drying process machine components (belts, screens, etc.)
Operate or tend equipment used in agricultural production and fi eld preparation such as tractors, irrigation equipment and other commonly used equipment in agriculture. Drive vehicles to haul crops, supplies, tools, or farm workers.
· Ability to read and write English/Spanish
· Ability to perform basic math skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
· Physical strength to lift containers that weigh up to 50 pounds.
· Workers with a valid driver’s license may be asked to drive vehicles under 26,001 GVW to hop drier facility, packing shed or storage locations.
· The Employer attests that these workers will be properly trained by their supervisor who has a valid Private Applicators license which is the standard pursuant to Idaho State Department of Agriculture. Furthermore, their supervisor will be available to ensure that workers understand all chemical labels, safety instructions, and application instructions pursuant to ISDA.

Special Requirements

4e) Must be able to lift and/or load 50lbs.
4g) Work may take place when temperatures are below freezing and above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
4h) May require extensive pulling and/or pushing of tools, wheelbarrows, fruit containers, etc.
4i) May require worker to sit and/or walk for extensive periods of time while sorting, picking, examining, weeding,transporting,
pruning, etc.
4j) Workers will be required to stoop and/or bend over while performing farm labor such as weeding, irrigating, pruning,picking,
removing debris, etc.
4k) There will be repetitive movements while performing most of the farm labor duties, for example picking, sorting, pruning, shoveling,
weeding, etc.