Farm Laborer
Employer: Mitchem Farms, LLC (2026.2)
Location: Vale, NC
Workers needed: 2
Pay: $15.13/hour
Season: Dec 18, 2026 – Oct 18, 2027
Experience: 2 months
Employer-provided housing; Transportation provided/reimbursed
The job
General farm work will include preparing fields, seeding beds, applying plastic to growing beds, manually planting, cultivating, and harvesting vegetables, fruits, and field crops. Using hand tools such as shovels, trowels, hoes, tampers, pruning hooks, shears, and knives to support agricultural activities, including pruning berry crops.
Duties may include tilling soil, transplanting, weeding, thinning, or pruning crops; may assemble/repair trellises and repair or maintain farm buildings and participate in irrigation activities.
Workers with a clean MVR and able to obtain an insurable driver's license may be requested to operate employer-owned trucks or other multi-purpose vehicles to haul tools, supplies, crops, and transport workers (whether on or off farm) to and from the worker housing to the farm properties and occasionally around the farm properties during the workday including on public roads to reach the fields where work will be performed; and/or may transport workers to the grocery store, bank, or laundry facilities on an as needed basis.
No applicants or workers will be rejected for not possessing a driver’s license or who may be unwilling to drive company vehicles. Such duties are completely optional and may be declined by the worker at his or her sole discretion.
Irrigation work will include setting up drip/overhead irrigation systems, placing or pulling plastic, and operating irrigation equipment.
Harvest Activities:
Melons: Hand harvest placed in bins, short melons by size
Butternut Squash: Hand harvest and places in bins and bushels. Sort squash by grade and size.
Sweet corn: handpick and place in 5-dozen sack.
Blackberries and blueberries: grade, and field pack blackberries (95%) and blueberries (5%) by hand. Walk through assigned row while bending and reaching to pick ripe blueberries and blackberries by hand without bruising or damaging the fruit or bush.
Workers must take care to pick bushes clean of all berries of the correct color and size that are suitable for shipment to fresh fruit markets, as instructed by their supervisor. Green or red berries must not be picked.
When picking blueberries, workers will carefully place picked berries into one gallon/six-pound buckets or clamshell containers and carry them to the inspection location according to supervisors’ instructions.
Workers will place full clamshell containers in flats at the end of the rows; carry full buckets and full clamshell flats to the trailer in the field. Buckets and clamshells will be inspected for quality and weighed.
Blackberries will be picked, graded, and packed; workers will carefully place picked berries into buckets with a net weight of 30 pounds or clamshell containers and carry them to the inspection location according to supervisors’ instructions.
Workers will place full clamshell containers in boxes at the end of the rows; carry full buckets and full boxes to the trailer in the field where fruit is inspected for quality and weight.
Housing: Employer-provided (including mobile or range)
Meals: Employer-provided housing includes free and convenient kitchen, cooking and eating facilities.
Workers will purchase food at their own expense and prepare their own meals. Kitchen and eating facilities will be shared with other workers occupying the employer-provided housing facilities. In the event kitchen facilities become unavailable due to unanticipated circumstances, the employer will provide three (3) meals per day at a reasonable cost (not to exceed $16.78 for three meals per day).
The employer will provide vehicles to transport themselves if they have a valid driver's license to a grocery store at least once per
week for workers to purchase groceries. If the workers do not possess a valid driver's license the employer will provide transportation
at no cost to workers occupying employer provided housing to and from stores in the locality of the housing where workers may
purchase food and other necessities once a week.
Transport: The employer will provide workers with inbound and outbound transportation as set forth in Section I. paragraph 7(A) and (B). The employer will pay for charter bus services or other modes of transportation to the group of workers or permit workers to select any means of transportation they choose, including common carrier transportation.
Experience wanted: 2 months
We require two months of recent and verifiable experience within the past two years working in diversified crops, handling manual and mechanical tasks, including agricultural field work.
In order to perform this kind of work, workers must be able to walk, bend, reach, push, pull, and lift and carry up to 30 lbs. for prolonged periods of time and have hand dexterity.
Work is outside in extremely wet, humid, hot and dirty conditions.
This position requires a minimum of two months for the employee to get a full understanding of the job and responsibilities.
Must be able to understand work & safety instructions in English or Spanish, the languages spoken and written in the workplace.
Workers may occasionally drive a pickup truck with capacity of 2 passengers.
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