Farm Laborer

Workers will be performing jobs pertaining to harvesting burley or dark tobacco. Workers will help maintain the greenhouse plants, by mowing and checking water levels, until all plants have been set into the ground. Workers will ride a tobacco setter placing plants in shoots, that put them in the ground. They will load plants from waterbeds onto trailers, to take to fields for planting. They may chop out the weeds between the rows of tobacco plants and topping the top couple of inches from the plants that flower/bloom out and removing any suckers. cutting tobacco consists of using metal tobacco knives and cutting the tobacco plants at the bottom of the stalks and placing them in piles of 5 or 6 (depending on the size of the plants) and then coming back to put those piles of stalks onto wooden tobacco sticks using a metal spike and standing the stick upright in the fields. After a few days of drying out in the sun, the sticks will be loaded onto wagons/trailers,and taking to the barns to be hung onto tear poles inside the barns. After several weeks of drying/curing out in the barns, the sticks will be taken down and stalks removed from the sticks and placed into large piles for stripping. Stripping consists of removing the leaves from the stalks and sorting them by looks and colors for grading. The leaves are later placed into large baling machines that compress the leaves into bales, weighing 600 pounds, and labeled. Workers will do basic farm jobs, (cleaning out or repairing barb wire fencing, mowing, weed eating, cleaning equipment, 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.