AI exposure: Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals
Attend to live farm, ranch, open range or aquacultural animals that may include cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses and other equines, poultry, rabbits, finfish, shellfish, and bees. Attend to animals produced for animal products, such as meat, fur, skins, feathers, eggs, milk, and honey. Duties may include feeding, watering, herding, grazing, milking, castrating, branding, de-beaking, weighing, catching, and loading animals. May maintain records on animals; examine animals to detect diseases and injuries; assist in birth deliveries; and administer medications, vaccinations, or insecticides as appropriate. May clean and maintain animal housing areas. Includes workers who shear wool from sheep and collect eggs in hatcheries.
Reading this score
computedFarmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 6.6% of weighted task load, rank 855 of 923. 87.3% of this job is work current AI systems cannot produce at all. That is not a statement about skill or value. It is a statement about what these systems can and cannot do.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 19 tasks it averages 2.74 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Maintain growth, feeding, production, and cost records, at 73.3%. The least is Spray livestock with disinfectants and insecticides, or dip or bathe animals, at 0.0%. A gap of 73.3% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within farming, fishing and forestry occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 10.8% across the group's 12 roles, with 9 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 19 tasks, 2 are currently banded exposed, 1 assisted and 16 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 0.58 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.74 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 1.58 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 1.16 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.21 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.26 | 0-3 |
Task by task
19 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maintain growth, feeding, production, and cost records. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 3.87 | exposed |
| Order food for animals, and arrange for its delivery. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 4.09 | exposed |
| Segregate animals according to weight, age, color, and physical condition. | 23.3% | 26.7% | 50.0% | 4.02 | assisted |
| Drive trucks, tractors, and other equipment to distribute feed to animals. | 13.3% | 11.7% | 75.0% | 4.02 | untouched |
| Patrol grazing lands on horseback or using all-terrain vehicles. | 13.3% | 11.7% | 75.0% | 4.05 | untouched |
| Examine animals to detect illness, injury, or disease, and to check physical characteristics, such as rate of weight gain. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.29 | untouched |
| Feed and water livestock and monitor food and water supplies. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.45 | untouched |
| Herd livestock to pastures for grazing or to scales, trucks, or other enclosures. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.40 | untouched |
| Provide medical treatment, such as administering medications and vaccinations, or arrange for veterinarians to provide more extensive treatment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.20 | untouched |
| Mark livestock to identify ownership and grade, using brands, tags, paint, or tattoos. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Inspect, maintain, and repair equipment, machinery, buildings, pens, yards, and fences. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.02 | untouched |
| Move equipment, poultry, or livestock from one location to another, manually or using trucks or carts. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.99 | untouched |
| Clean stalls, pens, and equipment, using disinfectant solutions, brushes, shovels, water hoses, or pumps. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.80 | untouched |
| Mix feed, additives, and medicines in prescribed portions. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.18 | untouched |
| Shift animals between grazing areas to ensure that they have sufficient access to food. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.16 | untouched |
| Protect herds from predators, using trained dogs. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Perform duties related to livestock reproduction, such as breeding animals within appropriate timeframes, performing artificial inseminations, and helping with animal births. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.06 | untouched |
| Groom, clip, trim, or castrate animals, dock ears and tails, or shear coats to collect hair. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.78 | untouched |
| Spray livestock with disinfectants and insecticides, or dip or bathe animals. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.76 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.