Community Sentiment
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Do you agree with the AI automation risk score calculated for this occupation?
AI Automation Index
Will AI Replace Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals?
Task-level automation exposure for Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals: 19 O*NET tasks scored against their work activities, plus the simulator.
E-E-A-T Verified
Developed & audited by Gini Loh Automation Exposure
16%
weighted task index
19 of 19 tasks scored
Median Salary
$36,670 / year
BLS OEWS, May 2025 — this exact occupation
Employment Level
Medium
32,810 people hold this job — size, not growth
Projected 2025–35
-3.2%
employment change
26,600 openings a year · BLS line item
Pay by state
BLS OEWS publishes 49 state estimates for this occupation. Each is its own survey estimate, not the national median adjusted for local prices.
$28,410 – $50,450
Highest medians
Alaska $50,450
West Virginia $48,460
Hawaii $47,050
Minnesota $46,020
Washington $45,370
Lowest medians
Georgia $28,410
Arkansas $29,340
Ohio $31,200
Nevada $31,700
Louisiana $31,940
State figures come from the 45-2093 row in the May 2025 state panel. States where the estimate was suppressed or too small to publish are absent.
What the score is made of
Each task is mapped to its work activities, scored for AI automation potential, and weighted by how important those activities are to the job. These are the components.
Automation potential 16%
Importance-weighted mean of the scored tasks. This is the headline index.
Physical work 33%
Share of weighted tasks in hands-on or machine-operating work activities.
Judgment & influence 40%
Share in analysis, decisions, teaching, directing, advising, or caring for others.
Routine administration 4%
Share in documenting, recording, and administrative activities.
Rewritten by O*NET 0%
Share of weighted tasks O*NET rewrote in a recent update. Reported, not folded into the score.
Consequence of error 25/100
Low
O*NET's own rating of how serious an uncorrectable mistake would be here — respondents, not us. Deliberately not in the index: the score measures what AI can do with the task content, and multiplying it by stakes would be our judgment dressed as data.
Constituent Task Mix
19 tasks for this occupation, weighted by work-activity importance. Shares below are of total task weight, not task count.
High exposure (≥ 60% of the task is automatable) 8%
2 tasks
Medium exposure (≥ 35%) 6%
1 tasks
Low exposure (below 35%) 86%
16 tasks
How would you survive?
Move your week away from the high-exposure tasks and toward the ones that need judgment. The simulator recalculates the index as you shift the mix.
Simulate Upskilling →Constituent Tasks
#13410 · Core · 5% automatable
Feed and water livestock and monitor food and water supplies.
physical manipulation — Animal care requires hands-on handling of unpredictable animals
Care for animals.
#13419 · Core · 5% automatable
Herd livestock to pastures for grazing or to scales, trucks, or other enclosures.
physical manipulation — Animal care requires hands-on handling of unpredictable animals
Care for animals.
#13412 · Core · 12% automatable
Examine animals to detect illness, injury, or disease, and to check physical characteristics, such as rate of weight gain.
visual inspection — Animal examination needs hands-on veterinary presence
Examine animals to detect illness, injury or other problems.
#13413 · Core · 5% automatable
Provide medical treatment, such as administering medications and vaccinations, or arrange for veterinarians to provide more extensive treatment.
physical manipulation — Veterinary hands-on treatment of animals
Treat animal injuries or illnesses.
#13418 · Core · 10% automatable
Mark livestock to identify ownership and grade, using brands, tags, paint, or tattoos.
physical manipulation — Marking forestry products is manual field work
Mark agricultural or forestry products for identification.
#13411 · Core · 8% automatable
Drive trucks, tractors, and other equipment to distribute feed to animals.
situated mobility — Farming equipment operation in unstructured fields
Operate farming equipment.
#13424 · Core · 50% automatable
Segregate animals according to weight, age, color, and physical condition.
visual inspection — Classification aided by vision; specimen handling human
Classify organisms based on their characteristics or behavior.
#13415 · Core · 18% automatable
Inspect, maintain, and repair equipment, machinery, buildings, pens, yards, and fences.
physical manipulation — Hands-on repair of field equipment in unstructured settings
Maintain forestry, hunting, or agricultural equipment.
#13416 · Core · 6% automatable
Move equipment, poultry, or livestock from one location to another, manually or using trucks or carts.
physical manipulation — Physical transport of animals, crops, equipment
Transport animals, crops, or equipment.
#13417 · Core · 10% automatable
Clean stalls, pens, and equipment, using disinfectant solutions, brushes, shovels, water hoses, or pumps.
physical manipulation — Equipment and facility cleaning is hands-on
Clean equipment or facilities.
#13414 · Supplemental · 12% automatable
Mix feed, additives, and medicines in prescribed portions.
physical manipulation — Physical preparation of materials for organisms
Prepare materials or solutions for animal or plant use.
#13420 · Supplemental · 5% automatable
Shift animals between grazing areas to ensure that they have sufficient access to food.
physical manipulation — Animal care requires hands-on handling of unpredictable animals
Care for animals.
#13430 · Supplemental · 5% automatable
Protect herds from predators, using trained dogs.
physical manipulation — Animal care requires hands-on handling of unpredictable animals
Care for animals.
#13421 · Supplemental · 70% automatable
Order food for animals, and arrange for its delivery.
data analysis — Materials inventory records and forecasting automatable
Maintain inventories of materials, equipment, or products.
#13422 · Supplemental · 3% automatable
Perform duties related to livestock reproduction, such as breeding animals within appropriate timeframes, performing artificial inseminations, and helping with animal births.
physical manipulation — Animal breeding is skilled physical procedure
Perform animal breeding procedures.
#13425 · Supplemental · 8% automatable
Patrol grazing lands on horseback or using all-terrain vehicles.
situated mobility — Farming equipment operation in unstructured fields
Operate farming equipment.
#13426 · Supplemental · 80% automatable
Maintain growth, feeding, production, and cost records.
data analysis — Maintain operational records in structured systems
Maintain operational records.
#13427 · Supplemental · 5% automatable
Groom, clip, trim, or castrate animals, dock ears and tails, or shear coats to collect hair.
physical manipulation — Animal care requires hands-on handling of unpredictable animals
Care for animals.
#13428 · Supplemental · 5% automatable
Spray livestock with disinfectants and insecticides, or dip or bathe animals.
physical manipulation — Animal care requires hands-on handling of unpredictable animals
Care for animals.
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How this was scored
- 1. Tasks. O*NET task statements for this occupation, from a release whose newest record is dated 08/2026.
- 2. Work activities. Each task maps to 1–5 Detailed Work Activities; each activity belongs to one of 41 Generalized Work Activities that O*NET rates for importance (1–5) in this occupation.
- 3. Automation potential. Every work activity carries one score for how far current AI can perform it end-to-end. Tasks inherit the mean of their activities.
- 4. Weighting. Task weight = 0.35 + 0.65 × (importance − 1)/4, scaled by how often the task is performed and by 0.7 for Supplemental tasks. Importance is the task's own O*NET rating where it exists (18,369 of 18,838 tasks); the rest inherit their work activities' importance. The index is the weighted mean.
Check: across the 910 occupations where O*NET also rates how far machine speed sets the pace, this index moves opposite to it (Spearman ρ = -0.49). The more a job is paced by equipment, the less of its task content AI can address — the relationship you would expect if the scoring is working.
Sources · O*NET 31.0 (task records to 08/2026) · BLS OEWS May 2025 · BLS projections 2025-2035 · rubric v2.1 · tasks for O*NET, not a forecast
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