The exemption provided in section 13(b)(12) for irrigation
activities is a direct exemption which depends for its application on
its own terms and not on the meaning of ``agriculture'' as defined in
section 3(f). This exemption was added by an amendment to section
13(a)(6) in 1949 to alter the effect of the decision of the U.S. Supreme
Court in Farmers Reservoir Company v. McComb, 337 U.S. 755, so as to
exclude the type of employees involved in that case from certain
requirements of the Act. Congress chose to accomplish this result, not
by expanding the definition of agriculture in section 3(f), but by
adding a further exemption. In view of this approach, it can well be
said that Congress agreed with the Supreme Court's holding that such
workers are not employed in agriculture. (Goldberg v. Crowley Ridge
Assn., 295 F. 2d 7.) Irrigation workers who are employed in any workweek
exclusively by a farmer or on a farm in irrigation work which meets the
requirement of performance as an incident to or in conjunction with the
primary farming operations of such farmer or such farm, as previously
explained, are considered as employed in agriculture under section 3(f)
and may qualify for the minimum wage and overtime exemption under
section 13(a)(6) or for the overtime exemption provided agricultural
workers under section 13(b)(12). Where they are not so employed, they
are not considered as agricultural workers (Farmers Reservoir Co. v.
McComb, supra), but may qualify for the overtime exemption under section
13(b)(12) relating to irrigation work if their duties and the irrigation
system on which they work come within the express language of the
statute. Where this is the case, it is not material whether the
employees are employed in agriculture.
