Agricultural Equipment Operators
- Bright Outlook
- Rapid Growth
Drive and control equipment to support agricultural activities such as tilling soil; planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops; feeding and herding livestock; or removing animal waste. May perform tasks such as crop baling or hay bucking. May operate stationary equipment to perform post-harvest tasks such as husking, shelling, threshing, and ginning.
What you’d do
- Load and unload crops or containers of materials, manually or using conveyors, handtrucks, forklifts, or transfer augers.
- Mix specified materials or chemicals, and dump solutions, powders, or seeds into planter or sprayer machinery.
- Spray fertilizer or pesticide solutions to control insects, fungus and weed growth, and diseases, using hand sprayers.
- Observe and listen to machinery operation to detect equipment malfunctions.
- Manipulate controls to set, activate, and adjust mechanisms on machinery.
- Operate or tend equipment used in agricultural production, such as tractors, combines, and irrigation equipment.
- Adjust, repair, and service farm machinery and notify supervisors when machinery malfunctions.
- Attach farm implements such as plows, discs, sprayers, or harvesters to tractors, using bolts and hand tools.
Skills that matter
- Operation and Control
- Operations Monitoring
- Troubleshooting
- Active Listening
- Equipment Maintenance
- Quality Control Analysis
How to get there
Little to some preparation: usually a high school diploma or GED, though some jobs do not need one
Also called
- Equipment Operator
- Farm Equipment Operator
- Loader Operator
- Rake Operator
- Baler Operator
- Cutter Operator
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