# 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.

- **SOC code:** 45-2091.00
- **Canonical URL:** https://singulariki.com/roles/role-45-2091-00
- **Also known as:** Equipment Operator, Farm Equipment Operator, Loader Operator, Rake Operator, Baler Operator, Cutter Operator, Hay Baler, Packing Tractor Machine Operator
- **Frame:** "AI exposure" means task overlap (how codifiable the work is), not jobs lost or a forecast. Every figure below is traced to a named public dataset.

## What this work is

**Core tasks** (O*NET):
- Load and unload crops or containers of materials, manually or using conveyors, handtrucks, forklifts, or transfer augers.
- Mix specified materials or chemicals, and dump solutions, powders, or seeds into planter or sprayer machinery.
- Spray fertilizer or pesticide solutions to control insects, fungus and weed growth, and diseases, using hand sprayers.
- Observe and listen to machinery operation to detect equipment malfunctions.
- Manipulate controls to set, activate, and adjust mechanisms on machinery.
- Load hoppers, containers, or conveyors to feed machines with products, using forklifts, transfer augers, suction gates, shovels, or pitchforks.
- Direct and monitor the activities of work crews engaged in planting, weeding, or harvesting activities.
- Operate or tend equipment used in agricultural production, such as tractors, combines, and irrigation equipment.
- Operate towed machines such as seed drills or manure spreaders to plant, fertilize, dust, and spray crops.
- Adjust, repair, and service farm machinery and notify supervisors when machinery malfunctions.
- Weigh crop-filled containers, and record weights and other identifying information.
- Drive trucks to haul crops, supplies, tools, or farm workers.

**Emerging tasks** (O*NET):
- Operate drones to monitor crop health, growth and pest infestations, and apply targeted treatments.

## Skills, tools, capabilities

**Knowledge, skills & abilities** (O*NET, highest importance first):
- Operation and Control _(transferable_skill)_
- Control Precision _(ability)_
- Multilimb Coordination _(ability)_
- Operations Monitoring _(transferable_skill)_
- Near Vision _(ability)_
- English Language _(knowledge)_
- Problem Sensitivity _(ability)_
- Far Vision _(ability)_
- Depth Perception _(ability)_
- Oral Comprehension _(ability)_
- Arm-Hand Steadiness _(ability)_
- Response Orientation _(ability)_

**Skills in demand:**
- English Language _(Common Skill)_
- Depth Perception _(Common Skill)_
- Speech Recognition _(Specialized Skill)_
- Microsoft PowerPoint _(Common Skill)_
- Microsoft Excel _(Common Skill)_
- Microsoft Access _(Specialized Skill)_
- Information Ordering _(Specialized Skill)_
- Finger Dexterity _(Common Skill)_
- Equipment Maintenance _(Specialized Skill)_
- Deductive Reasoning _(Common Skill)_
- Active Listening _(Common Skill)_
- Visualization _(Specialized Skill)_

**Tools & technology:**
- Microsoft Access _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Excel _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft PowerPoint _(hot technology)_
- Farm Management Software Hay and Crop Manager
- Martens Farms Farm Site Mate
- Martens Farms Farm Trac

## AI exposure & outlook

- **AI task-overlap index:** 9th percentile (Low) across all occupations — composite of current-era exposure studies (ai-exposure-index-v1).
- **Overall AI exposure (Felten et al.):** 13th percentile (Low) — source: felten_aioe.
- **LLM task exposure, γ (OpenAI / Eloundou):** 3rd percentile (Low) — source: eloundou_gamma.
- **AI assistant applicability (Microsoft):** 23rd percentile (Low) — source: microsoft_applicability.
- **Remote-capable (Dingel–Neiman):** no — task structure, not who actually works remote.
- **Projected employment (BLS 2024–34):** 7.7% growth (Growing fast); 10.5k annual openings; 65.2k → 70.3k jobs.
- **Pay & employment (BLS OEWS, May 2024):** median $42,580; 30,940 employed.

## Sources

- **O*NET** (30.3) — U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)** (May 2024) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS Employment Projections** (2024–2034) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **Microsoft “Working with AI”** (working-with-ai) — Microsoft Research. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/
- **“GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.)** (arXiv 2303.10130) — OpenAI / academic. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130
- **AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE)** (Felten, Raj & Seamans) — academic. https://github.com/AIOE-Data/AIOE
- **Dingel & Neiman (2020)** (dingel-neiman-workathome) — academic. https://github.com/jdingel/DingelNeiman-workathome

---
_Generated from Singulariki's joined dataset; data snapshot 2026-06-02T21:00:32.945303+00:00. https://singulariki.com/roles/role-45-2091-00_