First-Line Supervisors of Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Workers

In contrast, human-centric tasks seem far from automation. We found no widespread AI systems to euthanize animals or to train and assign workers on farms – these jobs still need human judgment and care. In fact, surveys show only a few farms use fully autonomous robots today (less than 5% use “next-generation” equipment ^[2]).

When machines do work (like harvesting), a person typically oversees the fleet. As McKinsey notes, automation usually shifts supervisors into “fleet manager” roles, so one worker might run several self-driving tractors rather than drive each one ^[2]. In short, AI and automation help with data and hard physical tasks, but tasks requiring empathy, teaching, or safety checks remain done by people.

On the pull (barrier) side, many farms move slowly. New equipment can be very costly, especially for small or family farms. Only about 1-in-5 U.S. farmers uses digital farm-management software now ^[2].

Farmers – often older and tight-margined – may hesitate without clear payoff. Also, some tasks (like caring for live animals or emergency culling) raise safety and ethical issues that make full automation tricky. In general, the social and regulatory comfort with robots on a farm grows gradually.

In short, technology is advancing and many see its benefits for cutting costs and helping with labor shortages. At the same time, human skills remain central: people must program, monitor, and guide these systems. For young people entering farming, the good news is that tech and human expertise will work together – learning to use AI tools may make one an even more valuable farm supervisor.