§ 72-1304 — AGRICULTURAL LABOR

(1)(a) "Agricultural labor" means all services performed:
(i) On a farm, in the employ of any person in connection with cultivating the soil, or raising or harvesting any agricultural, aquacultural or horticultural commodities, including the raising, shearing, feeding, caring for, training, and management of livestock, bees, fish, poultry, furbearers, and wildlife;
(ii) In the employ of the owner or tenant or other operator of a farm in connection with the operation, management, conservation, improvement, or maintenance of such farm and its tools and equipment, or in salvaging timber or clearing land of brush and other debris left by a hurricane if the major part of such service is performed on a farm;
(iii) In connection with the operation or maintenance of ditches, canals, reservoirs, or waterways not owned or operated for profit and used exclusively for supplying and storing water, at least ninety percent (90%) of which was ultimately delivered for agricultural purposes during the preceding calendar year; and
(iv) In the employ of any farm operator or group of operators, organized or unorganized, in handling, planting, drying, packing, packaging, eviscerating, processing, freezing, grading, storing, or delivering to storage or to market or to a carrier for transportation to market in its unmanufactured state any agricultural, aquacultural or horticultural commodities, if such operator or group, in both the current and preceding calendar years, produced more than one-half (1/2) of the commodities with respect to which such service is performed.
(b) Whether a farm operator described in subsection (1)(a)(iv) of this section produced more than one-half (1/2) of the commodities with respect to services performed shall be determined based on:
(i) Quantity, where only one (1) commodity is processed; or
(ii) Wages, where multiple commodities are processed. The pro rata share of wages paid for processing commodities raised by the farm operator compared to the total wages paid for processing all commodities shall determine whether a farm operator produced more than one-half (1/2) of the commodities processed.
(c) This subsection is not applicable to services performed in commercial canning, freezing, or dehydrating or in connection with any agricultural, aquacultural or horticultural commodity after its delivery to a terminal market for distribution for consumption.
(2) "Custom farming" means "agricultural labor" for the purposes of this chapter.
(3) "Farm" includes stock, dairy, fish, poultry, fruit, furbearer and truck farms, plantations, ranches, nurseries, hatcheries, ranges, greenhouses or other similar structures used primarily for the raising of agricultural, aquacultural or horticultural commodities, and orchards.
(4) "Unmanufactured state" means retention of its original form and substance.
(5) "Terminal market" means a place of business to which products are shipped in a sorted, graded, packaged condition, ready for immediate sale.

Legislative History

[72-1304, added 1947, ch. 269, sec. 4, p. 793; am. 1949, ch. 144, sec. 4, p. 252; am. 1951, ch. 235, sec. 1, p. 472; am. 1971, ch. 142, sec. 1, p. 595; am. 1972, ch. 344, sec. 1, p. 998; am. 1973, ch. 257, sec. 1, p. 508; am. 1981, ch. 254, sec. 1, p. 544; am. 1982, ch. 326, sec. 3, p. 809; am. 1996, ch. 63, sec. 1, p. 185; am. 1998, ch. 1, sec. 4, p. 6; am. 1998, ch. 83, sec. 1, p. 292; am. 2021, ch. 243, sec. 1, p. 751; am. 2025, ch. 29, sec. 3, p. 106.]