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Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers · code 6310

Subsistence crop farmers

Subsistence crop farmers grow and harvest field or tree and shrub crops, vegetables and fruit, in order to provide food, shelter and, in some cases, a minimum of cash income for themselves and their households. Tasks include - (a) preparing the soil, sowing, planting, tending and harvesting field crops; (b) growing vegetables, fruit and other tree and shrub crops; (c) fetching water and gathering firewood; (d) storing for later use and carrying out some processing of produce; (e) building and maintaining houses and other shelters; (f) making tools, clothes and utensils for use by the household; (g) selling or bartering some products at local markets. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Subsistence crop farmer - Subsistence gardener - Subsistence vegetable grower Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Crop farm labourer - 9211 - Firewood collector - 9624 - Water collector - 9624 Notes Workers in a subsistence setting whose main tasks are fetching water and gathering firewood are classified in Unit Group 9624: Water and Firewood Collectors. Workers in subsistence agriculture who perform a limited range of simple and routine tasks, usually under the direction of others, are classified in the relevant unit group in Sub-major Group 92: Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Labourers

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 38 of 427 for holding up against AI.

87.4
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 12.6 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 12.6 = 87.4

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

69
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

38.4
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 42.9 · hand skill 51.7 · cramped spaces 20.5 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4 Hands-on, less fiddly work

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.

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 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

This number is probably too high

This score only looks at AI tools like chatbots. It doesn't look at robots at all — and this job rates 69 out of 100 for how hands-on it is, which is exactly where robots come in.

Have a look at the tasks below and judge for yourself. The ILO scored them low because a chatbot can't do them. Whether a machine with hands could is a different question, and we can't answer it yet.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 23.3, while the average is 12.6. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 23.3

    Selling or bartering some products at local markets.

    Very Low
  2. 14

    Storing for later use and carrying out some processing of produce

    Very Low
  3. 13.5

    Making tools, clothes and utensils for use by the household

    Very Low
  4. 12.5

    Growing vegetables, fruit and other tree and shrub crops

    Very Low
  5. 9.3

    Building and maintaining houses and other shelters

    Very Low
  6. 8.3

    Preparing the soil and sowing, planting, tending and harvesting field crops

    Very Low
  7. 7.3

    Fetching water and gathering firewood

    Very Low

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

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

AI helps you
41
AI does it for you
20

Helping wins by 21 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 8999

Compared with similar jobs

There are 18 jobs in the “Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers” group, averaging 83.4. This one is above that.