[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 29, Volume 3]
[Revised as of July 1, 2004]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 29CFR780.136]

[Page 576-577]
 
                             TITLE 29--LABOR
 
         CHAPTER V--WAGE AND HOUR DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
 
PART 780_EXEMPTIONS APPLICABLE TO AGRICULTURE, PROCESSING OF AGRICULTURAL 
 
                 Subpart B_General Scope of Agriculture
 
Sec. 780.136  Employment in practices on a farm.

    Employees engaged in building terraces or threshing wheat and other 
grain, employees engaged in the erection of silos and granaries, 
employees engaged in digging wells or building dams for farm ponds, 
employees engaged in inspecting and culling flocks of poultry, and 
pilots and flagmen engaged in the aerial dusting and spraying of crops 
are examples of the types of employees of independent contractors who 
may be considered employed in practices performed ``on a farm.'' Whether 
such employees are engaged in ``agriculture'' depends, of course, on 
whether the practices are performed as an incident to or in conjunction 
with the farming operations on the particular farm, as discussed in 
Sec. Sec. 780.141 through 780.147; that is, whether they are carried on 
as a part of the agricultural function or as a separately organized 
productive activity (Sec. Sec. 780.104 through 780.144). Even though an 
employee may work on several farms during a workweek, he is regarded as 
employed ``on a farm'' for the entire workweek if his work on each farm 
pertains solely to farming operations on that farm. The fact that a 
minor and incidental part of the work of such an employee occurs off the 
farm will not affect this conclusion. Thus, an employee may spend a 
small amount of time within the workweek in transporting necessary 
equipment for work to be done on farms. Field employees of a canner or 
processor of farm products who work on farms during the planting and 
growing season where they supervise the planting operations and consult 
with the grower on problems of cultivation are employed in practices 
performed ``on a farm'' so long as such

[[Page 577]]

work is done entirely on farms save for an incidental amount of 
reporting to their employer's plant. Other employees of the above 
employers employed away from the farm would not come within section 
3(f). For example, airport employees such as mechanics, loaders, and 
office workers employed by a crop dusting firm would not be agriculture 
employees (Wirtz v. Boyls dba Boyls Dusting and Spraying Service 230 F. 
Supp. 246, aff'd per curiam 352 F. 2d 63; Tobin v. Wenatchee Air 
Service, 10 WH Cases 680, 21 CCH Lab Cas. Paragraph 67,019 (E.D. 
Wash.)).

                ``Such Farming Operation''--of the Farmer