§ 61-1-18 — Services included within agricultural labor.

As used in this title, the term, agricultural labor, includes all services performed: (1) On a farm, in the employ of any person, in connection with cultivating the soil or in connection with raising or harvesting any agricultural or horticultural commodity, including the raising, shearing, feeding, caring for, testing, training, and management of livestock, bees, poultry, and fur-bearing animals and wildlife; (2) 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 the farm and its tools and equipment, or in salvaging timber or clearing land of brush or other debris left by flood waters or windstorm, if the major part of the service is performed on a farm; (3) In connection with the production or harvesting of maple sugar or maple syrup or any commodity defined as an agricultural commodity in section 15(g) of the Federal Agricultural Marketing Act, as amended, or in connection with the raising or harvesting of mushrooms, or in connection with the operation or maintenance of ditches, canals, reservoirs, or waterways used exclusively for supplying and storing water for farming purposes; (4) In the employ of the operator of a farm in handling, planting, drying, packing, packaging, 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 or horticultural commodities; but only if the operator produced more than one-half of the commodity with respect to which the service is performed, or in the employ of a group of operators of farms (or a cooperative organization of which the operators are members) in the performance of service described in this section, but only if the operators produced more than one-half of the commodity with respect to which such service is performed. The provisions of this subdivision (4) may not be deemed to be applicable with respect to service performed in connection with commercial canning or commercial freezing or in connection with any agricultural or horticultural commodity after its delivery to a terminal market for distribution for consumption; (5) On a farm operated for profit if the service is not in the course of the employer's trade or business or is domestic service in a private home of the employer. As used in this section, the term, farm, includes stock, dairy, poultry, fruit, fur-bearing animals, and truck farms, plantations, ranches, nurseries, ranges, greenhouses, or other similar structures used primarily for the raising of agricultural or horticultural commodities and orchards.

Legislative History

SDC 1939, § 17.0802 (7) (g) (21) as added by SL 1941, ch 82, § 3; SL 1971, ch 276, §§ 15 to 17; SL 1991, ch 415; SL 2008, ch 277, § 26; SDCL §