[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 29, Volume 3]
[Revised as of July 1, 2005]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 29CFR780.104]

[Page 522]
 
                             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. 780.104  How modern specialization affects the scope of agriculture.

    The effect of modern specialization on agriculture has been 
discussed by the U.S. Supreme Court as follows:

    Whether a particular type of activity is agricultural depends, in 
large measure, upon the way in which that activity is organized in a 
particular society. The determination cannot be made in the abstract. In 
less advanced societies the agricultural function includes many types of 
activity which, in others, are not agricultural. The fashioning of 
tools, the provision of fertilizer, the processing of the product, to 
mention only a few examples, are functions which, in some societies, are 
performed on the farm by farmers as part of their normal agricultural 
routine. Economic progress, however, is characterized by a progressive 
division of labor and separation of function. Tools are made by a tool 
manufacturer, who specializes in that kind of work and supplies them to 
the farmer. The compost heap is replaced by factory produced 
fertilizers. Power is derived from electricity and gasoline rather than 
supplied by the farmer's mules. Wheat is ground at the mill. In this way 
functions which are necessary to the total economic process of supplying 
an agricultural produce become, in the process of economic development 
and specialization, separate and independent productive functions 
operated in conjunction with the agricultural function but no longer a 
part of it. Thusthe question as to whether a particular type of activity 
is agricultural is not determined by the necessity of the activity to 
agriculture nor by the physical similarity of the activity to that done 
by farmers in other situations. The question is whether the activity in 
the particular case is carried on as part of the agricultural function 
or is separately organized as an independent productive activity. The 
farmhand who cares for the farmer's mules or prepares his fertilizer is 
engaged in agriculture. But the maintenance man in a powerplant and the 
packer in a fertilizer factory are not employed in agriculture, even if 
their activity is necessary to farmers and replaces work previously done 
by farmers. The production of power and the manufacture of fertilizer 
are independent productive functions, not agriculture (see Farmers 
Reservoir Co. v. McComb, 337 U.S. 755 cf. Maneja v. Waialua, 349 U.S. 
254).