Tom C. Clark

“ Agriculture' includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil * * * the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities * * * and any practices * * * performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market.' [9] (Italics supplied.) ”

“ The railroad is used exclusively for the effectuation of the agricultural function of transporting exempt agricultural workers to the fields, together with their equipment and supplies, and hauling freshly cut cane to the processing plant. Without it or some other 'haul,' the land could not be cultivated and the cane, after harvest, would spoil in the fields and be lost. We believe that under the facts here presented the administrative practice also requires that the railroad employees be classified as within the agriculture exemption. ”

“ Operations, such as those of a shirt factory on a cotton farm, are said to be excluded from the agricultural exemption, not because they are not ordinarily operated by farmers, but because they are neither incident to farming operations nor appropriate to the preparation of a farm product for its initial market. Accordingly, the essential inquiry in the instant case is whether Waialua's processing of sugar cane is incident to farming operations, including those necessary or appropriate to prepare the cane product for storage or for its market. ”

“ Others attend to the irrigation of the fields. As the cane crop matures, crews of employees move in with mechanical cane harvesters that cut and throw the cane into railroad cars. The cane is then taken over portable tracks laid into the growing fields to Waialua's mainline railroad, which runs throughout the plantation, and from there skilled railroad workers transport the cane to the processing plant. Freshly cut sugar cane is extremely perishable and must be processed within a few days of harvesting or serious spoilage will result. ”

“ The answer should be that harvested sugar cane is so highly perishable that it must be processed promptly in order to be either stored or marketed. It naturally follows, therefore, that such processing, done by a farmer on a farm, should be recognized as 'agriculture' equally with the growing and harvesting of the crop. ”

“ Waialua owns and operates what might be called the agricultural analogue of the modern industrial assembly line. On its plantation, consisting of some ten thousand acres of land, it cultivates sugar cane which it processes into raw sugar and molasses. It utilizes the year-round growing season to produce a steady supply of cane and employs in its operations over a thousand persons, many at specialized tasks. Some move from field to field preparing the soil, fertilizing, planting seed or cultivating. ”

“ By a parity of reasoning, those employees who repair the mechanical implements used in farming are also included within the agriculture exemption. Every farmer, big or little, must keep his farming equipment in proper repair, and the fact that Waialua's size has permitted it to achieve an extraordinary degree of specialization should not deprive it of this exemption. ”

“ We do not have sufficient data to decide whether the employees in the laboratory, the cement products plant and the power plant are within the agriculture or sugar-processing exemption. On remand, the problems arising in those operations small though they be in the over-all picture-may be decided in the light of the considerations set down in this opinion. Likewise, the trial court may make any necessary reassessment in overtime compensation due employees. ”

“ This exemption was designed to meet the protests of many legislators who argued that the broad agriculture exemption permitted large farming units to process their own products without subjecting themselves to the terms of the Act, while the small farmer, who did not have the equipment necessary for such processing, had to bear the cost of operations covered by the Act. ”

“ The size of the ordinary farming operations. There can be no question here that such operations are substantial, and that Waialua's sugar-raising activities are no mere facade for an otherwise industrial venture.
(b) The type of product resulting from the operation in question. Here the products are raw sugar and molasses. There is some ground for considering these as strictly agricultural commodities, since the unmilled sugar cane is highly perishable and unmarketable as such. ”

“ The sponsors of the Act made clear, however, that 'a farmer erecting on his farm a factory and manufacturing anything you please, whether something he grows or not, who employs many people to manufacture it, and then ships it in interstate commerce * * * would not make the manufacturing * * * a farming operation.' 81 Cong.Rec. ”

“ Section 7 (c) , accordingly, was added to relieve such independent processors from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act in tacit recognition of the existing exemption of the processing farmers under the agricultural exemption. ”

“ We note, further, that such an interpretation closes a gap that would otherwise exist in the federal wage regulation of persons engaged in producing sugar for interstate commerce. The FLSA clearly reaches those engaged in refining sugar, cf. FLSA § 7 (c) , and the Sugar Act provides for reasonable wages for those engaged in the 'production, cultivation, or harvesting' of sugar cane. ”

“ Although the original administrative interpretation squarely supports our conclusion in regard to such hauling activity, [4] it is insisted that the administrative practice has been to the contrary since Bowie v. ”