Agricultural Equipment Operators
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.
Most important skills
- Operation and Control
- Operations Monitoring
- Troubleshooting
- Active Listening
- Equipment Maintenance
- Repairing
- Quality Control Analysis
- Critical Thinking
Key knowledge
- English Language
- Mechanical
- Public Safety and Security
- Mathematics
- Transportation
- Production and Processing
- Customer and Personal Service
- Chemistry
What the work involves
- Adjust, repair, and service farm machinery and notify supervisors when machinery malfunctions.
- Observe and listen to machinery operation to detect equipment malfunctions.
- Mix specified materials or chemicals, and dump solutions, powders, or seeds into planter or sprayer machinery.
- Operate or tend equipment used in agricultural production, such as tractors, combines, and irrigation equipment.
- Manipulate controls to set, activate, and adjust mechanisms on machinery.
- Spray fertilizer or pesticide solutions to control insects, fungus and weed growth, and diseases, using hand sprayers.
- Attach farm implements such as plows, discs, sprayers, or harvesters to tractors, using bolts and hand tools.
- Load and unload crops or containers of materials, manually or using conveyors, handtrucks, forklifts, or transfer augers.
Strongest interest areas (O*NET): Realistic, Conventional, Investigative.
Qualifications and licensing
- Most common education
- Less than a High School Diploma (56.8% of respondents)
- Related experience
- None (20.4%)
- On-the-job training
- Anything beyond short demonstration, up to and including 1 month (55.9%)
- Preparation level
- O*NET job zone 2: Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed
- Licensing
- Not yet verified. Check your state licensing board.
Check before planning
- Licensing for Agricultural Equipment Operators is not yet verified for any state: check the state licensing board before planning.
Limits
- Distributions show what current workers or occupational experts report, not legal minimums.
- Requirements vary by employer and state; time to qualify is not estimated.
Source: O*NET 31.0 Database (USDOL/ETA, CC BY 4.0); BLS Employment Projections · dataset 2026.10.8 · method e3-qualification-1.0.0
Work environment
How the typical conditions of this occupation compare with 911 occupations in O*NET (very low = the lowest fifth).
Levels are relative. Most occupations involve a lot of contact with people, for example, so “very low” can still mean regular contact; the last column shows what workers actually reported.
| Condition | Level | Compared with other occupations | Most common answer (O*NET survey) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact with others | Very low | Lower on contact with others than 89% of occupations compared | 40% of surveyed respondents chose “Constant contact with others” |
| Dealing with the public | Very low | Lower on dealing with the public than 95% of occupations compared | 68% of surveyed respondents chose “Not important at all” |
| Teamwork | Very low | Lower on teamwork than 81% of occupations compared | — |
| Freedom to make decisions | Very low | Lower on freedom to make decisions than 95% of occupations compared | 28% of surveyed respondents chose “Very little freedom” |
| Time pressure | Very low | Lower on time pressure than 82% of occupations compared | 68% of surveyed respondents chose “Once a week or more but not every day” |
| Conflict situations | Very low | Lower on conflict situations than 88% of occupations compared | — |
| Dealing with unpleasant or angry people | Very low | Lower on dealing with unpleasant or angry people than 96% of occupations compared | — |
| Consequence of error | Low | Lower on consequence of error than 61% of occupations compared | 39% of surveyed respondents chose “Very serious” |
Work-pressure profile
- Time pressure: very low
- Conflict situations: very low
- Dealing with unpleasant or angry people: very low
- Consequence of error: low
Each part is shown on its own. There is no combined stress score, and conditions vary by employer and role.
Full answer distributions
Contact with others
- No contact with others: 14.79%
- Occasional contact with others: 12.73%
- Contact with others about half the time: 2.36%
- Contact with others most of the time: 30.13%
- Constant contact with others: 39.99%
n = 23, Incumbent 08/2019
Dealing with the public
- Not important at all: 67.99%
- Fairly important: 12.19%
- Important: 1.32%
- Very important: 1.12%
- Extremely important: 17.38%
n = 23, Incumbent 08/2019
Teamwork
- Not important at all: 0%
- Fairly important: 12.13%
- Important: suppressed by O*NET (low precision)
- Very important: 29.56%
- Extremely important: suppressed by O*NET (low precision)
n = 24, Incumbent 08/2019
Freedom to make decisions
- No freedom: 16.67%
- Very little freedom: 28.22%
- Limited freedom: 2.63%
- Some freedom: 25.45%
- A lot of freedom: 27.04%
n = 24, Incumbent 08/2019
Time pressure
- Never: 13.04%
- Once a year or more but not every month: 12.65%
- Once a month or more but not every week: 1.01%
- Once a week or more but not every day: 68.31%
- Every day: 4.99%
n = 24, Incumbent 08/2019
Conflict situations
- Never: suppressed by O*NET (low precision)
- Once a year or more but not every month: 16.26%
- Once a month or more but not every week: 3.03%
- Once a week or more but not every day: 16.12%
- Every day: 12.24%
n = 23, Incumbent 08/2019
Dealing with unpleasant or angry people
- Never: suppressed by O*NET (low precision)
- Once a year or more but not every month: 30.22%
- Once a month or more but not every week: 2.52%
- Once a week or more but not every day: 0.9%
- Every day: 11.94%
n = 24, Incumbent 08/2019
Consequence of error
- Not serious at all: 32.76%
- Fairly serious: 0.64%
- Serious: suppressed by O*NET (low precision)
- Very serious: 38.62%
- Extremely serious: 1.99%
n = 24, Incumbent 08/2019
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O*NET-SOC 45-2091.00 · SOC 45-2091 (exact, high confidence) · dataset 2026.10.8