Farmworker Diversified: Herbs Harvest

Job Title: Diversified Farmworker - HERBS

Category: Non-Exempt ~ Seasonal H2A

Department: Herbs Harvest

Location: Goodyear

Report to: Department Supervisor

At Duncan Family Farms (DFF), we believe our primary responsibility is to produce clean, healthy, life-giving food. As a leading certified-organic grower, we harvest thousands of acres of produce those ships directly from our farms to processors in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Some of our products include Spinach, Spring Mix Lettuce, Kale, Arugula, and Culinary Herbs. Due to our innovative programs, Duncan Family Farms has won numerous awards and is nationally recognized as a ‘showcase' of progressive farming techniques. Recent growth has enabled the expansion of our technological portfolio as well as our technical personnel. Duncan Family Farms is based in Goodyear, Arizona, and has farms across the United States.

Job Description and Requirements

The job requires a minimum of 3 months of verifiable commercial agricultural employment experience, preferably on a vegetable farm, handling both manual and machine tasks associated with commodity production and harvest activities. Workers must be able to perform manual as well as mechanized activities with accuracy and efficiency. This is hard, strenuous labor, under cold, wet conditions in the spring, and extreme heat and humidity in the summer.

Workers will be required to perform a variety of duties related to the production of herbs. Workers will be required to manually plant, cultivate, and harvest culinary herbs. Worker will be required to use hand tools, such as shovels, trowels, hoes, tampers, pruning hooks, shears, and knives. Duties may include hand harvest, packing, and loading harvested products. Employees may be required to assist with farm building and field maintenance, repair fences, and/or repair or cover hoop houses. Employees may be asked to perform irrigation activities such as placing irrigation pipes and fittings. There is a considerable amount of stooping and kneeling throughout the various tasks being performed. Care must be taken to prevent damaging produce and plants. Workers will be required to dig and prepare ground, till soil and prepare field for planting, plant pots in fields, remove broken or damaged poles and install new poles (hoop houses), manually remove weeds by hand or with digging tools.

Workers will be asked to spread plastic or cover crops with netting materials or plastic and remove them when no longer needed by hand or machine. Workers will be asked to pack crops in totes, bins, clamshells, tie or bundle items, weigh product and load product by hand.

Workers must wear assigned personal protective equipment when required. Must report for work daily wearing work clothing and boots or another durable footwear. Workers wearing clothing inappropriate for work will not be permitted to start work.

Workers with a clean driving record (no major moving violations such as but not limited to Driving While Intoxicated or Reckless Driving) and able to obtain an insurable driver's license may be required to drive company vehicles.

In addition, workers will be required to perform variable tasks such as the following: ditching, shoveling, hoeing, hauling, ground preparation, and other tasks related to general farming. Workers will also engage in maintaining the equipment, restrooms, and fields in sanitary condition by sanitizing equipment, restrooms, lunch tables, picking up packing material, boxes, labels, trash, and discard of any other unwanted items.

Work will also include mechanized fieldwork using power equipment. By way of example and not limitation power equipment may include tractors, planters, sprayers, cultivators, and other equipment. Workers will be expected to be able to operate agricultural equipment with or without direction. Workers must be able to comprehend and follow instructions and communicate effectively to supervisors. Unusual, complex, or non-routine activities will be supervised. Field workers will be expected to perform their general duties in a timely and proficient manner without close supervision. Workers must obey all safety rules and basic instructions and be able to recognize, understand, and comply with safety, pesticide warning/re-entry and other essential postings.

Minimum Qualifications

• 3 months experience commercial farming required in harvesting.

• Experience working with the following crops:
  • Culinary Herbs

Physical Demands/Work Environment

Workers will be required to harvest crops by hand and work in the fields for long periods of time. Workers will work in packing areas used for packing vegetables. Workers are expected to perform duties including boxing, weighing, and loading of products. Workers will assist in loading/ unloading trucks with products weighing up to and including 60 pounds and lifting to a height of 5 feet for long periods of time. Workers must be able to work on their feet in bent positions and must be able to bend and stoop for long periods of time. Work requires repetitive movements and extensive walking. Allergies to ragweed, goldenrod, honeybees, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, or related chemicals may affect a worker's ability to perform the job. Work required in fields when plants are wet with dew and rain, and may be required during light rain, snow, moderate winds, direct sun, high humidity and extreme temperatures. Temperatures in fields may range from 10 to 105 F. Workers will be required to work during occasional showers not severe enough to stop field operations. Workers should be physically able to do the work required with or without reasonable accommodation. To be qualified for this position, a worker must be willing to perform the considerable manual labor required on such a farm.