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Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers · code 6320

Subsistence livestock farmers

A phone can tell you the price of a goat. Raising it is another matter.

AI barely touches any of the twelve tasks, from checking animals for illness and shearing to fetching water and trading livestock.

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

Subsistence livestock farmers breed, raise and tend livestock in order to provide food, shelter and, in some cases, a minimum of cash income for themselves and their households. Tasks include - (a) cultivating pastures, or managing grazing lands, and monitoring feed and water supplies needed to maintain condition of livestock; (b) monitoring and examining animals to detect illness, injury or disease, and to check physical condition; (c) grooming and marking animals and shearing coats to collect hair or wool; (d) herding or leading livestock to pastures, grazing land and water supplies; (e) raising, tending, feeding and milking animals or draining blood from them; (f) breeding animals and helping with animal births; (g) slaughtering and skinning animals and preparing them and their products for consumption or sale; (h) carrying out some processing of animal products; (i) building and maintaining houses and other shelters; (j) making tools, clothes and utensils for use by the household; (k) fetching water and gathering firewood; (l) buying, bartering and selling animals and some products. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Subsistence cattle farmer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Livestock farm labourer - 9212 - Mixed crop and livestock farm labourer - 9213 - Water and firewood 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.

87 / 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

42 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 12 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 12.7 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 12.7 = 87.3.

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 68 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?

Subsistence livestock farmers 87

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.

  • Checking livestock prices by phone.
  • Getting animal health advice remotely.
  • Mobile payments and simple records.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Herding, breeding and caring for animals.
  • Spotting illness and injury in the herd.
  • Managing grazing and water.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Mobile vet and advice services.
  • Selling through mobile money.
  • Drought and climate adaptation schemes.

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.

Threat level: Low

20 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 41 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

68 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.

68 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, matched to one US job .

finger skill 42.9 · hand skill 44.6 · cramped spaces 17.3 · 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 22, against an average of 13. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 22

    Buying, bartering and selling animals and some products.

    Very Low
  2. 17

    Monitoring and examining animals to detect illness, injury or disease, and to check physical condition

    Very Low
  3. 14

    Breeding animals and helping with animal births

    Very Low
  4. 14

    Cultivating pastures, or managing grazing lands, and monitoring feed and water supplies needed to maintain condition of livestock

    Very Low
  5. 14

    Herding or leading livestock to pastures, grazing land and water supplies

    Very Low
  6. 14

    Raising, tending, feeding and milking animals or draining blood from them

    Very Low
  7. 14

    Making tools, clothes and utensils for use by the household

    Very Low
  8. 11

    Slaughtering and skinning animals and preparing them and their products for consumption or sale

    Very Low
  9. 10

    Building and maintaining houses and other shelters

    Very Low
  10. 9

    Carrying out some processing of animal products

    Very Low
  11. 9

    Grooming and marking animals and shearing coats to collect hair or wool

    Very Low
  12. 8

    Fetching water and gathering firewood

    Very Low

12 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

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
41
AI does it for you
20

Sidekick wins, by 21 points.

How good a match is this?

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

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 8999

So, should subsistence livestock farmers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. Every task rates Very Low; the most exposed is buying and selling animals. Phones help with prices, vet advice and payments, but herding, breeding and caring for animals stay hands-on.

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 83. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →