{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/pesticide-handlers-sprayers-and-applicators-vegetation/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Pesticide Handlers, Sprayers, and Applicators, Vegetation",
    "soc_code": "37-3012",
    "category": "Facilities",
    "us_employment": 27050,
    "median_annual_wage": 46340
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 64,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 15,
    "embodiment": 17,
    "liability_shield": 14,
    "trust_premium": 8,
    "judgment_accountability": 10
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Calibrating a boom, checking nozzle output, mixing to a label rate in a tank, then walking a fenceline or median with a backpack sprayer around signs, culverts, and parked cars is not work a model does — a 15 rather than 18 because the record-keeping, route planning, and weather-window decisions that fill the rest of your day are already being done by software.",
    "embodiment": "You are outdoors in PPE in whatever heat and wind the day gives you, dragging hose, loading 2.5-gallon jugs, and treating slopes and ditches where a wheeled rig can't go — 17 rather than 20 because a meaningful share of applications happen from a seat on a truck or ATV on maintained ground.",
    "liability_shield": "Your state commercial applicator license, category-specific and renewed on CEUs, is what makes an application legal, and FIFRA and state drift statutes let the department fine or suspend the person whose number is on the record — 14 rather than 18 because in many jobs the employer holds the business license and a licensed supervisor can cover a trained non-certified handler.",
    "trust_premium": "HOAs, golf superintendents, and municipal road foremen do repeat-call the applicator who doesn't burn the turf or hit the neighbor's tomatoes, but the contract is usually with the company and the bid, not with you — 8 reflects a real route relationship that doesn't survive a price change.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether wind speed and inversion conditions make the day a no-spray, whether that stand is knapweed or a native, and how much to back off near open water or a school — 10 rather than 15 because the label is a legal ceiling that removes most of the dosing discretion and the crew lead sets the target list."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of this job — mixing chemicals to label rates, hauling and calibrating spray equipment, walking turf, roadsides, and rights-of-way, and treating uneven terrain around obstacles — is physical work in uncontrolled outdoor environments that no current robot does end to end. A state-issued commercial applicator license and personal liability for drift, misapplication, and restricted-use chemicals put a named human on the ticket. The real exposure is not language AI but machinery: GPS-guided boom sprayers, drone applicators, and computer-vision spot-spray rigs cut crew-hours per acre, and the paperwork half of the job (application logs, target/weather records, compliance reports) is already software.",
  "outlook": "Autonomous and drone spraying will shrink crew-hours per acre through the 2030s, but the licensed human who mixes, calibrates, judges drift conditions, and signs the record stays on the job site.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "FAA and state lead-agency rules for drone/UAS aerial application already require a Part 137 agricultural aircraft operator certificate plus a licensed applicator of record; if states extend the 'certified applicator must be physically present and personally sign the application record' requirement to autonomous ground and drone spot-spray rigs (as California DPR and several state lead agencies have debated for UAS restricted-use applications), the named human stays on every ticket regardless of who pulls the trigger",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "EPA label language itself is the lever: registrants adding 'apply only under the direct supervision of a certified applicator' and drift-management/buffer statements to more product labels makes the license a per-container legal requirement, not a job-title convention",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Task-mix shift is real here: this job has a routine tier (walk the boom, pull the trigger) and a judgment tier (read wind/inversion conditions, decide go/no-go, pick product and rate for resistance and off-target risk, handle sensitive-site and endangered-species buffers under EPA's Endangered Species Protection Bulletins). If autonomous rigs take the routine tier, the remaining role is the licensed decision-maker who owns drift and misapplication calls",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Insurer requirement: pesticide-drift claims are a live liability line, and if crop/environmental liability carriers begin conditioning coverage on a documented human-signed pre-application site assessment (as some applicator liability programs already do for dicamba-era drift claims), the consequential call is formally owned",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Restricted-use and fumigant work (soil fumigation, structural, right-of-way near water) carries handler PPE, respirator-fit, and closed-system mixing requirements under the EPA Worker Protection Standard that no autonomous rig currently satisfies; if the automatable open-turf boom work is what leaves first, the residual mix is these harder categories",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "No plausible route to a higher trust_premium: buyers of vegetation management (DOTs, utilities, municipal parks, HOAs) procure on lowest bid per acre and compliance paperwork, and there is no consumer-visible preference for a human sprayer. Embodiment is near its practical ceiling and is the dimension most directly eroded by drone and vision-guided spot-spray hardware — the levers above shift where the human sits, not how many are needed per acre."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 25900,
        "wage": 34830
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 24500,
        "wage": 35320
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 25780,
        "wage": 35840
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 23950,
        "wage": 36630
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 25820,
        "wage": 38270
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 22740,
        "wage": 41440
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 23520,
        "wage": 44070
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 25200,
        "wage": 45200
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 27050,
        "wage": 46340
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 4.4,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}