Vegetable Farm Worker
What the work is
Performs routine tasks on a vegetable farm, such as cultivating and fertilising soil, and planting and irrigating crops. May spray pesticides on crops to treat disease and pests.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Patrols, inspects and reports on the condition of vegetable crops
- Undertakes soil preparation, cultivation and vegetable crop maintenance duties, such as planting, thinning, weeding and hoeing row crops
- Erects growing supports such as trellises, and protective structures such as greenhouses and fences
- Operates water and irrigation systems for vegetable growth
- Maintains, cleans and operates vegetable farming infrastructure and equipment, such as sheds, fences and machinery
- May spray vegetable crops with pesticides to control weed growth, insects, fungus growth and diseases
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a family-run fruit and vegetable farm in the middle of harvest, with picking crews, irrigation and a spray shed. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- Walking a block at sunrise and spotting a problem a week before it would have cost the crop
- A full day of picking ends with the last crates loaded and a crew that is tired and proud
- Rain arrives right after you finish the planting you were racing to get done
Hard days
- Picking or hoeing in forty degree heat with the sun straight overhead
- A frost, a hailstorm or a pump failure that undoes a month of work in an hour
- A boss who needs the whole block picked today and a crew that is running short
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 841138, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.