Harvest Crew

Job description

Crops/Commodities:
Assorted organic vegetables and fruits, including strawberries and melons, and herbs..
This job requires a minimum of three months of verifiable agricultural field work employment experience handling both manual and machine tasks associated with vegetable production and harvest activities. Workers must be able to perform manual as well as mechanized activities with accuracy and efficiency. Plants, cultivates, harvests a variety of organic vegetables, fruits (strawberries and melons), and herbs , in fields and greenhouses. Washes, field grades and packs vegetables, fruits (strawberries and melons), herbs. Cultivates, hand weeds and thins plants. Plants/transplants plants, riding on transplanter or by hand. Picks, cuts, lifts, or pulls crop to harvest them. Harvests crops into crates/bins/boxes or onto a conveyor belt. Loads seedlings and crops onto wagons and trucks. Assists with irrigation installation and removal, moving irrigation pipe by hand. Washes harvest bins and empty seedling flats. May spread or remove plastic or other groundcovering, move and lay hoops, bags, and floating row covers. May stake/tie plants, trellis/prune plants, and set poles and wires for vine plants. May be required to shovel, hoe, rake, spread compost, straw, leaves, fertilizer, feeding, transplanting, and potting in the greenhouse. Preparing beds, pulling up plastic and dead plants, and planting new seedlings in hoophouse as well as pruning, harvesting, tying up line, clipping plants, sterilizing tools, and washblast water to packshed. In the packshed, produce must be washed, graded, and packed according to quality and weight for storage and sale.

Considerable stooping and kneeling is required. Care must be taken to prevent damaging produce and plants. May operate hand-operated equipment. May assist with general farm building maintenance and greenhouse preparation. Employees will receive instruction from supervisor, and will be required to maintain standards of quality, speed and efficiency, as well as respectfully follow directions. Must harvest crops according to predetermined customer specific count, quality and bunch size, and follow good agricultural practices.Workers must follow all food safety standards.Workers must be able to distinguish horticultural plants from weeds.

In addition, workers may be required to perform variable tasks such as the following: irrigation, ditching, shoveling, hoeing, hauling, ground preparation and other tasks related to general farming.

Work may also include mechanized field work using power equipment. By way of example and not limitation power equipment may include tractors, planters, sprayers, cultivators and other equipment. Workers will be expected to be able to operate/maintain agricultural equipment with or without direction.

Work is to be done for long periods of time. Workers are expected to perform duties including boxing, weighing and loading of product. Workers will assist in loading trucks with packaged product weighing up to and including 60 pounds and lifting to a height of 5 feet for long periods of time. Workers should be able to work on their feet in bent positions for long periods of time. Work requires repetitive movements and extensive walking. Allergies to ragweed, goldenrod, insect spray, related chemicals, etc. may affect workers’ ability to perform the job. Workers are exposed to wet weather early in the morning through the heat of the day, working in fields. Temperatures may range from 10 to 100 F. Workers may be required to work during occasional showers not severe enough to stop field operations. Workers should be physically able to do the work required with or without reasonable accommodations. No smoking or tobacco use is permitted in fields, housing, or on company property.

Special Requirements

This job requires a minimum of three months of verifiable agricultural field work employment experience handling both manual and machine tasks associated with vegetable production and harvest activities. Saturday work required. Must be able to lift/carry 60 lbs.