What are the responsibilities and job description for the Farm Laborer position at R. L. Gearlds Farms?
The workers will help clean the area around greenhouses and float beds, keep plants mowed/trimmed back until time to set the tobacco plants. The setting process requires long hours of sitting and loading plants trays onto the setter, and placing the plants into shoots to be put into the ground. Workers will rotate following the setter to replant anything that got missed. The workers will keep the weeds/grass chopped out between the rows of tobacco in the fields. Once plants bloom, the workers will walk the rows removing the top couple of inches of blooms from the plants. Once ready, the workers will use tobacco knives to cut down the plants and place 5 to 6 stalks of tobacco onto wooden sticks using a metal tobacco spike. In 2 to 3 days of drying out in the fields, they will go back, haul and hang the sticks in the barns. After several weeks of drying out and weather permitting, they will remove sticks from the barn and take the stalks off the sticks and place into piles. They will learn to remove the leaves into 3 grades, by looks and color, then bundle/tie up their leaves in large burlap bags, tagged by numbers for baling. Workers are expected to bundle/tie up their discarded tobacco sticks, empty their stalks onto wagons, and clean up the area where they stripped. the baling process is putting the stripped leaves into large baling machines, that will compress the tobacco into bales and weigh them. Workers will do basic farm jobs (cleaning, fencing, mowing, weed eating, etc.) during the between times of tobacco processes, to help ensure their 3/4 guaranteed hours of their contracts. Lifting 50 to 60 pounds, climbing, walking, bending, and repeated movements are all requirements of tobacco labor workers.
Salary : $14