(a) The words ``production, cultivation, growing'' describe actual
raising operations which are normally intended or expected to produce
specific agricultural or horticultural commodities. The raising of such
commodities is included even though done for purely experimental
purposes. The ``growing'' may take place in growing media other than
soil as in the case of hydroponics. The words do not include operations
undertaken or conducted for purposes not concerned with obtaining any
specific agricultural or horticultural commodity. Thus operations which
are merely preliminary, preparatory or incidental to the operations
whereby such commodities are actually produced are not within the terms
``production, cultivation, growing''. For example, employees of a
processor of vegetables who are engaged in buying vegetable plants and
distributing them to farmers with whom their employer has acreage
contracts are not engaged in the ``production, cultivation, growing'' of
agricultural or horticultural commodities. The furnishing of mushroom
spawn by a canner of mushrooms to growers who supply the canner with
mushrooms grown from such spawn does not constitute the ``growing'' of
mushrooms. Similarly, employees of the employer who is engaged in
servicing insecticide sprayers in the farmer's orchard and employees
engaged in such operations as the testing of soil or genetics research
are not included within the terms. (However, see Secs. 780.128, et seq.,
for possible exemption on other grounds.) The word ``production,'' used
in conjunction with ``cultivation, growing, and harvesting,'' refers, in
its natural and unstrained meaning, to what is derived and produced from
the soil, such as any farm produce. Thus, ``production'' as used in
section 3(f) does not refer to such operations as the grinding and
processing of sugarcane, the milling of wheat into flour, or the making
of cider from apples. These operations are clearly the processing of the
agricultural commodities and not the production of them (Bowie v.
Gonzalez, 117 F. 2d 11).
(b) The word ``production'' was added to the definition of
``agriculture'' in order to take care of a special situation--the
production of turpentine and gum rosins by a process involving the
tapping of living trees. (See S. Rep. No. 230, 71st Cong., second sess.
(1930); H.R. Rep. No. 2738, 75th Cong., third sess. p. 29 (1938).) To
insure the inclusion of this process within the definition, the word
``production'' was added to section 3(f) in conjunction with the words
``including commodities defined as agricultural commodities in section
15(g) of the Agricultural Marketing Act, as amended'' (Bowie v.
Gonzalez, 117 F. 2d 11). It is clear, therefore, that ``production'' is
not used in section 3(f) in the artificial and special sense in which it
is defined in section 3(j). It does not exempt an employee merely
because he is engaged in a closely related process or
occupation directly essential to the production of agricultural or
horticultural commodities. To so construe the term would render
unnecessary the remainder of what Congress clearly intended to be a very
elaborate and comprehensive definition of ``agriculture.'' The
legislative history of this part of the definition was considered by the
U.S. Supreme Court in reaching these conclusions in Farmers Reservoir
Co. v. McComb, 337 U.S. 755.
