CFR > Title 29 - Labor > SUBTITLE B—Regulations Relating to Labor > CHAPTER V—WAGE AND HOUR DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR (parts 500 to 871) > SUBCHAPTER B—STATEMENTS OF GENERAL POLICY OR INTERPRETATION NOT DIRECTLY RELATED TO REGULATIONS (parts 775 to 794) > PART 780—EXEMPTIONS APPLICABLE TO AGRICULTURE, PROCESSING OF AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES, AND RELATED SUBJECTS UNDER THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT > SUBPART G—Employment in Agriculture and Livestock Auction Operations Under the Section 13(b)(13) Exemption (§780.600 to §780.621) > 780.605—Employment in agriculture.

780.605—Employment in agriculture.

One requirement for exemption is that the employee be employed in “agriculture.” “Agriculture,” as used in the Act, is defined in section 3(f) as follows:
(f) “Agriculture” includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities (including commodities defined as agricultural commodities in section 15(g) of the Agricultural Marketing Act, as amended), the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices (including any forestry or lumbering operations) performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market.

Code of Federal Regulations

An employee meets the tests of being employed in agriculture when he either engages in any one or more of the branches of farming listed in the first part of the above definition or performs, as an employee of a farmer or on a farm, practices incident to such farming operations as mentioned in the second part of the definition (Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McComb, 337 U.S. 755). The exemption applies to “any employee” of a farmer whose employment meets the tests for exemption. Accordingly, any employee of the farmer who is employed in “agriculture,” including laborers, clerical, maintenance, and custodial employees, harvesters, dairy workers, and others may qualify for the exemption under section 13(b)(13) if the other conditions of the exemption are met.