Operate towed machines such as seed drills or manure spreaders to plant, fertilize, dust, and spray crops.

“Operate towed machines such as seed drills or manure spreaders to plant, fertilize, dust, and spray crops.” is a supplemental task performed by Agricultural Equipment Operators. Among the occupation's 17 rated tasks, workers place it 9th by importance (#9 most important). About 65% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Operate agricultural or forestry equipment. in Controlling Machines and Processes

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Load and unload crops or containers of materials, manually or using conveyors, handtrucks, forklifts, or transfer augers. · importance 4.5
• Mix specified materials or chemicals, and dump solutions, powders, or seeds into planter or sprayer machinery. · importance 4.4
• Spray fertilizer or pesticide solutions to control insects, fungus and weed growth, and diseases, using hand sprayers. · importance 4.3
• Observe and listen to machinery operation to detect equipment malfunctions. · importance 4.3
• Manipulate controls to set, activate, and adjust mechanisms on machinery. · importance 4.3
• Load hoppers, containers, or conveyors to feed machines with products, using forklifts, transfer augers, suction gates, shovels, or pitchforks. · importance 4.2
• Direct and monitor the activities of work crews engaged in planting, weeding, or harvesting activities. · importance 4.2
• Operate or tend equipment used in agricultural production, such as tractors, combines, and irrigation equipment. · importance 4.2
• Adjust, repair, and service farm machinery and notify supervisors when machinery malfunctions. · importance 4.0
• Weigh crop-filled containers, and record weights and other identifying information. · importance 4.0
• Drive trucks to haul crops, supplies, tools, or farm workers. · importance 4.0
• Walk beside or ride on planting machines while inserting plants in planter mechanisms at specified intervals. · importance 4.0
• Guide products on conveyors to regulate flow through machines, and to discard diseased or rotten products. · importance 4.0
• Irrigate soil, using portable pipes or ditch systems, and maintain ditches or pipes and pumps. · importance 4.0

See all tasks on the Agricultural Equipment Operators page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-13365,
  title  = {Operate towed machines such as seed drills or manure spreaders to plant, fertilize, dust, and spray crops.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-13365}
}