# 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.

- **SOC code:** 45-2092.00
- **Canonical URL:** https://singulariki.com/roles/role-45-2092-00
- **Also known as:** Greenhouse Worker, Grower, Harvester, Nursery Worker, Farm Laborer, Farmer, Field Irrigation Worker, Gardener
- **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):
- Sell and deliver plants and flowers to customers.
- Record information about crops, such as pesticide use, yields, or costs.
- Direct and monitor the work of casual and seasonal help during planting and harvesting.
- Harvest plants, and transplant or pot and label them.
- Participate in the inspection, grading, sorting, storage, and post-harvest treatment of crops.
- Regulate greenhouse conditions, and indoor and outdoor irrigation systems.
- Feel plants' leaves and note their coloring to detect the presence of insects or disease.
- Repair and maintain farm vehicles, implements, and mechanical equipment.
- Provide information and advice to the public regarding the selection, purchase, and care of products.
- Harvest fruits and vegetables by hand.
- Set up and operate irrigation equipment.
- Maintain and repair irrigation and climate control systems.

## Skills, tools, capabilities

**Knowledge, skills & abilities** (O*NET, highest importance first):
- Trunk Strength _(ability)_
- Arm-Hand Steadiness _(ability)_
- Control Precision _(ability)_
- Manual Dexterity _(ability)_
- Multilimb Coordination _(ability)_
- Extent Flexibility _(ability)_
- Finger Dexterity _(ability)_
- Static Strength _(ability)_
- Rate Control _(ability)_
- Dynamic Strength _(ability)_
- Stamina _(ability)_
- Near Vision _(ability)_

**Skills in demand:**
- Finger Dexterity _(Common Skill)_
- Speech Recognition _(Specialized Skill)_
- Microsoft Word _(Common Skill)_
- Microsoft PowerPoint _(Common Skill)_
- Microsoft Outlook _(Common Skill)_
- Microsoft Excel _(Common Skill)_
- Deductive Reasoning _(Common Skill)_
- Inductive Reasoning _(Common Skill)_
- Active Listening _(Common Skill)_
- Biology _(Specialized Skill)_
- Writing _(Common Skill)_
- Visualization _(Specialized Skill)_

**Tools & technology:**
- Microsoft Excel _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Office software _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Outlook _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft PowerPoint _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Word _(hot technology)_
- BCL Landview Systems WinCrop
- Farm Works Software Trac
- Global positioning system GPS software
- IBM Lotus Notes
- Web browser software

## 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.):** 4th percentile (Low) — source: felten_aioe.
- **LLM task exposure, γ (OpenAI / Eloundou):** 26th percentile (Low) — source: eloundou_gamma.
- **AI assistant applicability (Microsoft):** 10th percentile (Low) — source: microsoft_applicability.
- **Remote-capable (Dingel–Neiman):** no — task structure, not who actually works remote.
- **Projected employment (BLS 2024–34):** -3.3% growth (Declining); 71.7k annual openings; 504.8k → 488.1k jobs.
- **Pay & employment (BLS OEWS, May 2024):** median $35,690; 261,690 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/
- **Anthropic Economic Index** (v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27)) — Anthropic. https://www.anthropic.com/economic-index
- **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

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_Generated from Singulariki's joined dataset; data snapshot 2026-06-02T21:00:32.945303+00:00. https://singulariki.com/roles/role-45-2092-00_