NMWM06030 | Specific occupations and special groups: examples of occupations covered by the Agricultural Wages Orders

The following are likely to come within the definition of “agriculture” and be subject to an Agricultural Wages Order

• care of and attention to bulls kept and used in connection with artificial insemination;

• care of and attention to poultry in batteries or other housed poultry;

• drawing and plucking poultry for a first sale, on the premises on which the birds are reared;

• planting, felling and other jobs generally connected with the establishment, maintenance and harvesting of woodland or forests;

• employment in the gardens of a hotel, school, convent, hospital or other institution growing food wholly or mainly for outside sale or for consumption on the premises;

• packing and grading of eggs or other produce on the farm on which the eggs were produced (but not at a packing station);

• pheasant breeding if the land on which they are reared contributes to their upkeep and if they are reared to be eaten or sold as food but not for shooting;

• grass drying where it involves the employer’s own grass;

• agricultural mechanics where they are employed by the farmer himself/herself rather than by a third party or by a contractor.

The following are unlikely to come within the definition of “agriculture” and are not subject to an Agricultural Wages Order

• care of and attention to poultry or bantams kept solely as a hobby for showing at country shows etc;

• chick sexing;

• seed analysis;

• packing and grading of eggs or other produce at a packing station;

• groundsmen looking after playing fields or the greens of a golf course;

• the “private” gardener producing fruit or flowers for use in the private household of the employer, or employed in amenity grounds e.g. tending lawns, flower beds etc. (The determining factor is whether the gardener is employed on the production of “consumable produce” - this may for example include flowers - that is grown for sale or for consumption or other use for the purpose of a trade or business or of any undertaking whether carried out for profit or not);

• exclusive employment as a landscape gardener;

• employment at hunting or racing stables, e.g. as a groom;

• preparing poultry after the birds have been purchased from a primary producer;

• gamekeeping;

• a worker engaged solely on distributive duties, such as milk transport from the farm;

• employment as a temperature regulator in a greenhouse;

• artificial insemination;

• employment as a blacksmith;

• scrubbing and cleaning incubators and trays on a holding run independently of a farm where the eggs are produced;

• peat walling.