Some examples will serve to illustrate the above principles.
Employees of a fruit grower who dry or pack fruit not grown by their
employer are not within section (f). This is also true of storage
operations conducted by a farmer in connection with products grown by
someone other than the farmer. Employees of a grower-operator of a
sugarcane mill who transport cane from fields to the mill are not within
section 3(f), where such cane is grown by independent farmers on their
land as well as by the mill operator (Bowie v. Gonzalez, 117 F. 2d 11).
Employees of a tobacco grower who strip tobacco (i.e., remove the leaves
from the stalk) are not agricultural employees when performing this
operation on tobacco not grown by their employer. On the other hand,
where a farmer rents some space in a warehouse or packinghouse located
off the farm and the farmer's own employees there engage in handling or
packing only his own products for market, such operations by the farmers
are within section 3(f) if performed as an incident to or in conjunction
with his farming operations. Such arrangements are distinguished from
those where the employees are not actually employed by the farmer. The
fact that a packing shed is conducted by a family partnership, packing
products exclusively grown on lands owned and operated by individuals
constituting the partnership, does not alter the status of the packing
activity. Thus, if in a particular case an individual farmer is engaged
in agriculture, a family partnership which performs the same operations
would also be engaged in agriculture. (Dofflemeyer v. NLRB, 206 F. 2d
813.) However, an incorporated association of farmers that does not
itself engage in farming operations is not engaged in agriculture though
it processes at its packing shed produce grown exclusively by the farmer
members of the association. (Goldberg v. Crowley Ridge and Fruit Growers
Association, 295 F. 2d 7 (C.A. 8).)
