Working with Agriculture Salary Tools

Use agriculture salary tools to project fair earnings in your area
By Heather Topham Wood, Freelance Writer Agriculture salary tools allow the user to determine the average pay of those that hold the same or similar position. When working with agriculture salary tools, you also need to take several things into account, including experience, location and type of farming operation.

Farm workers' pay can be hard to gauge due to the volatility of the agricultural field. A good crop season can permit a much higher farm worker salary while poor crop yields can cause a dip in the overall farm salary.

1. Get an agricultural engineer salary range. You can work with online tools in order to estimate how much is earned annually by others in your position.

2. Read farming salary surveys. Survey results can give you more information than simply looking at agriculture pay averages.

3. Consider that not all agriculture pay information that you access is cut and dry. Years of experience will likely come into play. Many sites report merely starting salaries.

Use tools to determine agricultural salaries

Salary wizard tools will ask you to enter particular information about your farm and your position. Once you give the wizard your desired position, years experience and location, you should receive an expected range of farming salaries.
Try:  Get customized farming salary information when you enter personal information or details about your small business on Salary.com. The site also helps you find job resources in order to look for farm job openings within your area. Yahoo HotJobs has a similar tool that puts the data into easy to read graph form.

Browse farm salary surveys

Salary surveys for the agriculture industry will give you more detailed information than most salary wizards. You can view the average rates, high range, low range and included benefits for multiple positions found on a farm.
Try:  AgriCareers provides annual updates for salary surveys within the agricultural industry. It also breaks the figures down by workers that handle swine, dairy, beef and crops. Use the results from the Farm Employers Labor Service to determine what you or your employees should be earning.

Adjust agriculture salary tools based on experience

You should try to work with agriculture salary tools that allow you to see ranges that take experience into consideration. A farm manager salary for someone who has 10 years or more experience will likely be much different than an entry level manager. You will also want to use tools to look at average hourly rates.
Try:  PayScale breaks down salary ranges for United States farm managers by how many years experience that they obtain. Career Overview overviews farm manager salary by annual as well as hourly pay average.

• Education may play a role in farm workers pay as well. For instance, an agricultural engineer salary may be more competitive than other positions due to the educational requirements to hold such a position.