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Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers · code 6130

Mixed crop and animal producers

AI can crunch the farm accounts. It can't run the farm.

AI barely touches eight of the ten tasks, including sowing, harvesting and getting animals ready for market. Planning production and marketing are mostly out of its reach too.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

Mixed crop and animal producers plan, organize and perform farming operations to grow and harvest field, tree and various other crops, as well as to breed, raise and tend animals and to produce a variety of animal husbandry products, for sale or delivery to wholesale buyers, marketing organizations or at markets. Tasks include - (a) monitoring market activity and conditions, determining kinds and amounts of crops to be grown and animals to be raised, and planning and coordinating production accordingly; (b) purchasing seeds, fertilizer, and other supplies; (c) performing operations such as land preparation, sowing, planting, cultivating and harvesting crops; (d) producing or buying fodder and other food supplies; (e) breeding, raising and tending animals; (f) killing and skinning animals, and preparing animals or animal products for market; (g) renting or investing in and maintaining and cleaning farm buildings, machinery, equipment, and structures; (h) storing and carrying out some processing of produce; (i) promoting and marketing products, arranging the sale, purchase and transportation of livestock, produce and supplies and maintaining and evaluating records of farm activities and transactions; (j) training and supervising workers in animal care procedures, maintenance duties, and health and safety precautions and hiring and discharging workers and contractors. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Farmer (mixed farming) - Skilled farm worker (mixed farming) Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Agricultural production manager - 1311 - Plantation manager - 1311 - Mixed farm labourer - 9213 Notes Farmers and other skilled agricultural workers whose tasks predominantly involve either raising animals or growing crops, but also involve some incidental activity in crop growing or tending animals respectively, should not be included in Unit Group 6130: Mixed Crop and Animal Producers. For example, a farmer who raises cattle for the market but also spends a small amount of time growing garden vegetables should be classified in Unit Group 6121: Livestock and Dairy Producers. Similarly, a wheat farmer who keeps a small number of chickens and other farmyard animals should be classified in Unit Group 6111: Field Crop and Vegetable Growers. Workers on mixed farms who specialize in either crop or animal production for the market should be classified in the relevant unit group in Minor Groups 611: Market Gardeners and Crop Growers, or 612: Animal Producers, as appropriate.

  • farm manager
  • mixed farmer

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

81 / 100

Strongly holds up against AI

Most of this job still needs an actual human. AI would mostly be making the tea.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Not Exposed

131 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 10 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 19 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 19 = 81.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Not Exposed”: None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Pinch of salt: this number is probably too rosy

It only asks what AI software could do, and this job is 67 out of 100 hands-on. A chatbot can't do that part. A robot might, one day, and nobody measures how close that is.

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Mixed crop and animal producers 81

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Planning crops and stock from market data.
  • Marketing, sales and paperwork.
  • Buying supplies.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Raising animals and growing crops.
  • Maintaining buildings and machinery.
  • Running the farm day to day.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Farm management software and sensors.
  • Environmental and carbon schemes.
  • Selling direct to customers.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

– could do without you

We don't have a measure of how much of this job AI could take over.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

67 how hands-on

Most of this job needs hands, a body or turning up. That's robot territory, and nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to give you a number. We won't make one up.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 35 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

67 How
hands-on
35 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, averaged across 3 US jobs .

finger skill 41 · hand skill 40.5 · cramped spaces 24.4 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 44, against an average of 19. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 44

    Monitoring market activity and conditions, determining kinds and amounts of crops to be grown and animals to be raised, and planning and coordinating production accordingly

    Low
  2. 34

    Promoting and marketing products, arranging the sale, purchase and transportation of livestock, produce and supplies, and maintaining and evaluating records of farm activities and transactions

    Low
  3. 24

    Training and supervising workers in animal care procedures, maintenance duties and health and safety precautions, and hiring and discharging workers and contractors.

    Very Low
  4. 17

    Purchasing seeds, fertilizer and other supplies

    Very Low
  5. 15

    Renting or investing in, and maintaining and cleaning farm buildings, machinery, equipment and structures

    Very Low
  6. 14

    Producing or buying fodder and other food supplies

    Very Low
  7. 14

    Storing and carrying out some processing of produce

    Very Low
  8. 12

    Breeding, raising and tending animals

    Very Low
  9. 9

    Performing operations such as land preparation, sowing, planting, cultivating and harvesting crops

    Very Low
  10. 9

    Killing and skinning animals, and preparing animals or animal products for market

    Very Low

10 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

So, should mixed farmers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

Parts of the business side are changing. Planning and marketing are the most exposed tasks, both Low; raising animals, growing crops and maintaining the farm rate Very Low. Farm management software is growing, but mixed farms need people who can do everything.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 18 jobs in the “Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers” family, averaging 84. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →