Farmworkers & Laborers

Number of Workers Requested:  49

The farm work position includes duties associated with the cultivating, harvesting, and housing of tobacco. This work can require standing, walking, stooping, bending, and lifting up to 75 pounds repetitively for long periods of time outdoors in all weather conditions with temperatures ranging from 40 degress to 100 degrees. Workers must use care when performing their farm work duties, must adhere to all safety rules as instructed by their supervisors, and all farm work operations must meet the standards and specifications given by the employer. The farm work position requires two months (60 days) of verifiable work experience in cultivating, manual harvesting, and housing of tobacco. Field Maintenance: Workers will weed by the use of a hoe or by hand, and straighten tobacco stalks. Workers may be required to irrigate fields; to include the digging and maintenance of ditches and the installation, maintenance, and repair of field irrigation components. Farm/Tobacco barn maintenace: Workers will maintain cleanliness of farm and tobacco barn areas to include the removal of litter and post-harvest clean up. Top/Sucker tobacco: Workers may pull flowering tops, bad leaves and suckers from tobacco plants. Harvest tobacco: Workers will move into a row of mature tobacco plants. The tobacco plant may be from 4 to 6 feet tall and spaced about 20 inches apart in each row. Starting at the bottom of the plant, the worker will bend over at the waist and pick the bottom two or three leaves from each plant. Staying bent over, the worker will move down the row of mature tobacco repeating the above process. The bottom leaves may be as low as two inches from the ground. The worker will place the picked leaves under his arm. Once the worker has gathered an armload of leaves, the worker will carry it to a field sled. The leaves must be laid neatly onto the field sled. The worker will then return to the row and repeat the process. All workers must be able to distinguish ripe tobacco by observing the color of the leaves. Care must be exercised to prevent breaking of the plants. Workers must be able to move quickly along the rows and move in unison with the field sleds. Workers may ride B&O Harvester, (to hand harvest), and mechanical harvester. Housing tobacco: Workers will pack, string and stake tobacco. Workers may assist in removing tobacco from barn and baling it to be loaded on trucks. Weight of sheets of tobacco may be 300lbs. Workers may be required to perform work that is incidental to farming the tobacco crop. Workers are required to work in fields when tobacco leaves are wet with dew or rain. Workers may be exposed to noxious plants, insects and insect control sprays. Allergies to ragweed, goldenrod, honey bees, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, or related chemicals may affect a worker’s ability to perform the job.