Farmworkers And Laborers, Crop

Job description

Workers will perform manual labor to harvest and maintain various crops including asparagus, apples, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins. For asparagus, workers will ride on a picking cart or walk behind it to hand-snap spears at ground level, ensuring spears are the correct length and placed neatly into lugs without pulling the roots or leaving white ends. For apple and peach orchards, workers will perform basic maintenance such as planting trees, hand-thinning small fruit from branches, and pruning limbs with hand tools. This work includes clearing the fields by picking up rocks and roots, shoveling soil, and removing weeds, vines, and debris to ensure the grounds remain suitable for production. Harvesting apples and peaches requires the use of a ladder and a picking sack, where workers must carefully pick the fruit by hand to avoid bruising, keep the stems attached, and gently empty the sacks into bins. Packing tasks involve sorting fruit by color and size, folding boxes, and stacking cartons onto pallets.
During strawberry and blueberry harvesting, workers walk through rows to pick all ripe berries by hand while following quality standards to avoid bruising the fruit. For cucumbers and squash, workers pluck the vegetables to fill five-gallon buckets, while pumpkin harvesting requires cutting vines with a knife and working in a line to pass pumpkins weighing between 20 and 70 pounds. During periods when harvesting is unavailable due to weather, crop maturity, or other conditions beyond the employer’s control, workers will perform general farm and field maintenance duties that are incidental to agricultural production. These duties include tying and staking plants, pruning trees, and assisting under direct supervision with routine irrigation system maintenance or minor repairs using hand tools only, with no technical troubleshooting required.
General duties also include cleaning farm equipment, repairing wooden bins and pallets, and performing light cleanup of worksites and common living areas related to the workers’ own use, such as trash removal and maintaining sanitary conditions as necessary to meet health and safety standards. All workers must be able to lift up to 50 pounds and perform repetitive movements such as bending, stooping, and kneeling for long periods. All work is performed under the direction of a supervisor, and training will be provided for all assigned tools or equipment.

Equipment Operation (Non-Essential / Incidental Duty)
Operation of farm equipment is a non-essential and incidental duty. On an occasional, infrequent, and very short-duration basis, workers may assist under direct supervision with minor movement of a tractor, truck, or forklift within farm boundaries only. This assistance is limited to supporting field or material-handling activities.
No prior experience, training, or specialized license is required at the time of hire. This assistance is not tied to productivity standards and will not replace or displace regular equipment operators.

Special Requirements

This type of work, involves working conditions that require tremendous stamina, a high level of physical activity in cold or extremely hot conditions in direct sunlight and in adverse weather such as rain. The work requires a high level of physical conditioning.