AI exposure: 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.
Reading this score
computedAt 17.5% of weighted task load, Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse sits at the 29th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 72.5% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 27 tasks it averages 2.37 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Record information about crops, at 73.3%. The least is Plant, spray, weed, fertilize, water, and prune plants, shrubs, and trees, at 0.0%. A gap of 73.3% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within farming, fishing and forestry occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 12 roles in the group is 9.0%, and only 2 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.
What would move this score. Of 27 tasks, 7 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 20 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 1.06 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.37 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.44 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.46 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.20 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.98 | 0-3 |
Task by task
27 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record information about crops, such as pesticide use, yields, or costs. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.12 | exposed |
| Record information about plants and plant growth. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 3.43 | exposed |
| Set up and operate irrigation equipment. | 55.0% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 3.71 | exposed |
| Regulate greenhouse conditions, and indoor and outdoor irrigation systems. | 55.0% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 4.01 | exposed |
| Provide information and advice to the public regarding the selection, purchase, and care of products. | 45.0% | 30.0% | 25.0% | 3.79 | exposed |
| Inform farmers or farm managers of crop progress. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 3.69 | exposed |
| Maintain inventory, ordering materials as required. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 3.43 | exposed |
| Maintain and repair irrigation and climate control systems. | 26.2% | 11.2% | 62.5% | 3.70 | untouched |
| Sell and deliver plants and flowers to customers. | 14.2% | 10.8% | 75.0% | 4.17 | untouched |
| Operate tractors, tractor-drawn machinery, and self-propelled machinery to plow, harrow and fertilize soil, or to plant, cultivate, spray and harvest crops. | 13.3% | 11.7% | 75.0% | 3.45 | untouched |
| Feel plants' leaves and note their coloring to detect the presence of insects or disease. | 11.7% | 13.3% | 75.0% | 3.83 | untouched |
| Inspect plants and bud ties to assess quality. | 11.7% | 13.3% | 75.0% | 3.27 | untouched |
| Direct and monitor the work of casual and seasonal help during planting and harvesting. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.09 | untouched |
| Identify plants, pests, and weeds to determine the selection and application of pesticides and fertilizers. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 3.54 | untouched |
| Participate in the inspection, grading, sorting, storage, and post-harvest treatment of crops. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.03 | untouched |
| Harvest plants, and transplant or pot and label them. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.03 | untouched |
| Repair and maintain farm vehicles, implements, and mechanical equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.81 | untouched |
| Harvest fruits and vegetables by hand. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.78 | untouched |
| Load agricultural products into trucks, and drive trucks to market or storage facilities. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.29 | untouched |
| Clean work areas, and maintain grounds and landscaping. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.10 | untouched |
| Dig, cut, and transplant seedlings, cuttings, trees, and shrubs. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.69 | untouched |
| Dig, rake, and screen soil, filling cold frames and hot beds in preparation for planting. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.37 | untouched |
| Move containerized shrubs, plants, and trees, using wheelbarrows or tractors. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.23 | untouched |
| Tie and bunch flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees, wrap their roots, and pack them into boxes to fill orders. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.20 | untouched |
| Haul and spread topsoil, fertilizer, peat moss, and other materials to condition soil, using wheelbarrows or carts and shovels. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.10 | untouched |
| Repair farm buildings, fences, and other structures. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 2.94 | untouched |
| Plant, spray, weed, fertilize, water, and prune plants, shrubs, and trees, using gardening tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | – | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean. 1 task(s) lacked a usable O*NET weight and are shown but excluded from the weighting.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.