Glossary
Farmworker Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential farmworker terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key farmworker vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in farmworker training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Crew leader
- A worker who leads a crew.
- Cultivation
- Loosening soil and removing weeds.
- Food safety
- Practices that keep produce safe.
- Greenhouse
- A structure for growing plants.
- Harvest
- Picking mature crops.
- Heat illness
- Conditions caused by heat.
- Irrigation
- Watering crops.
- Nursery
- A business growing plants for sale.
- Pack shed
- Where produce is packed.
- Piece rate
- Pay based on amount harvested.
- Pruning
- Cutting plant parts to improve growth.
- REI
- Restricted-entry interval after pesticide application.
- Row crops
- Crops planted in rows.
- Transplant
- A young plant moved to the field.
- Worker Protection Standard
- EPA rules protecting farmworkers.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Farmworker practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Farmworker training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.