Post job

Farm labour vs farmer

The differences between farm labours and farmers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a farmer has an average salary of $30,845, which is higher than the $26,720 average annual salary of a farm labour.

The top three skills for a farm labour include harvest, cleanliness and farm machinery. The most important skills for a farmer are beef cattle, farm work, and farm machinery.

Farm labour vs farmer overview

Farm LabourFarmer
Yearly salary$26,720$30,845
Hourly rate$12.85$14.83
Growth rate1%-3%
Number of jobs25,319500
Job satisfaction45
Most common degreeHigh School Diploma, 34%Bachelor's Degree, 40%
Average age4048
Years of experience--

What does a farm labour do?

Also called agricultural workers, farm laborers are people who inspect and harvest crops. The workers irrigate soil on the farm and maintain their pumps, pipes, or ditches. They service and operate farm tools and machinery. Their job involves the maintenance of crops like vegetables, nuts, and fruits. They look after livestock on the farm like cows, chickens, etc. Also, they inspect the animals for the detection of symptoms of injuries or illnesses and administer vaccines for disease protection.

What does a farmer do?

A farmer, also known as an agriculturer, is a person deeply involved in agriculture, raises living organisms for food, produces organic matter, or unprocessed materials for human and animal consumption. There are several types of farmers from those who raise animals, grow crops, and other livestock. At most, due to the advanced economy, most of them are farm owners, but there are still some who work as laborers on land owned by others. Besides having a general knowledge of planting, breeding, and harvesting, they should also need to be familiar with mechanics in order to help them keep their equipment working and running.

Farm labour vs farmer salary

Farm labours and farmers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Farm LabourFarmer
Average salary$26,720$30,845
Salary rangeBetween $21,000 And $33,000Between $13,000 And $71,000
Highest paying CityYakima, WAKearny, NJ
Highest paying stateNorth DakotaNew Jersey
Best paying companyCargillL'Oréal
Best paying industryFinanceManufacturing

Differences between farm labour and farmer education

There are a few differences between a farm labour and a farmer in terms of educational background:

Farm LabourFarmer
Most common degreeHigh School Diploma, 34%Bachelor's Degree, 40%
Most common majorBusinessBusiness
Most common college--

Farm labour vs farmer demographics

Here are the differences between farm labours' and farmers' demographics:

Farm LabourFarmer
Average age4048
Gender ratioMale, 80.5% Female, 19.5%Male, 73.6% Female, 26.4%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 3.9% Unknown, 3.0% Hispanic or Latino, 24.0% Asian, 1.8% White, 66.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.1%Black or African American, 1.1% Unknown, 2.9% Hispanic or Latino, 7.6% Asian, 1.5% White, 86.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.6%
LGBT Percentage3%4%

Differences between farm labour and farmer duties and responsibilities

Farm labour example responsibilities.

  • Manage and oversee the day-to-day running of farms raising poultry or pigs for the production of meat and breeding stock.
  • Perform duties in farrowing unit, relocate sows, immunize and care for newborn pigs.
  • Job are to keep the farm up, mowing, weed eating, put fertilizer down.
  • Used hand tools including shovels, rakes, pruning saws, hedge and brush trimmers and axes.
  • Carry out daily milking, feeding, and field operations, twice per day, for the care of dairy livestock
  • Milk cows, landscaping, field work, lawn mowing, bailing hay, and anything else done on a farm.
  • Show more

Farmer example responsibilities.

  • Manage and conduct the baling, hauling, advertising, and selling of 2000 straw square bales a year from 2002-2006.
  • Work on dairy farm and do everything from milking cows to working on equipment.
  • Can operate excellent with or without GPS
  • Work on hydroponic production of tomato crops.
  • Discuss and help with farm growth CSA expansion.
  • bush hogging baling hay planting seed cow castration and immunization
  • Show more

Farm labour vs farmer skills

Common farm labour skills
  • Harvest, 18%
  • Cleanliness, 12%
  • Farm Machinery, 10%
  • Farm Work, 5%
  • Drive Tractor, 5%
  • Mowing, 5%
Common farmer skills
  • Beef Cattle, 13%
  • Farm Work, 8%
  • Farm Machinery, 6%
  • Milking, 6%
  • Mowing, 6%
  • Farm Animals, 5%

Browse farming, fishing, and forestry jobs