Can Agents Work?

Jobs / Science and research / 19-4012.01

Precision Agriculture Technicians

Apply geospatial technologies, including geographic information systems (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS), to agricultural production or management activities, such as pest scouting, site-specific pesticide application, yield mapping, or variable-rate irrigation. May use computers to develop or analyze maps or remote sensing images to compare physical topography with data on soils, fertilizer, pests, or weather.

US jobs
15,130 (SOC 19-4012 group, "Agricultural Technicians")
Median wage
$49,630 a year
Job family
Science and research

Can agents do the work of precision agriculture technicians?

We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Science and research:

  • Task levelPartialThin evidence. CORE-Bench asks agents to reproduce the results of published papers in computer science, social science, and medicine from the authors' code and data. Princeton's HAL team declared it solved in December 2025: Claude Code with Claude Opus 4.5 scored 95.5% after manual regrading. No benchmark in our collection tests new experiments or lab work.
  • Project levelNot yetThin evidence. On PaperBench, where agents replicate machine learning papers from scratch, the best official result is 26.0% (o1, April 2025). On a small subset, ML PhDs scored 41.4% against o1's 26.6%. No newer official results exist, and no benchmark tests research projects in other sciences.

Benchmarks for the job family

These cover work in science and research, not always this occupation's tasks.

  • CORE-Benchby Princeton UniversityTask level · CORE-Bench-Hard accuracy (public test set)
    95.5%Claude Code + Claude Opus 4.5 (after manual regrading) · 3 Dec 2025
    Solved
  • PaperBenchby OpenAIProject level · Average replication score
    26%IterativeAgent o1-high (36h limit) · 2 Apr 2025
    Emerging

Typical tasks

From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.

  • Document and maintain records of precision agriculture information.
  • Collect information about soil or field attributes, yield data, or field boundaries, using field data recorders and basic geographic information systems (GIS).
  • Use geospatial technology to develop soil sampling grids or identify sampling sites for testing characteristics such as nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium content, pH, or micronutrients.
  • Divide agricultural fields into georeferenced zones, based on soil characteristics and production potentials.
  • Install, calibrate, or maintain sensors, mechanical controls, GPS-based vehicle guidance systems, or computer settings.
  • Create, layer, and analyze maps showing precision agricultural data, such as crop yields, soil characteristics, input applications, terrain, drainage patterns, or field management history.
  • Compare crop yield maps with maps of soil test data, chemical application patterns, or other information to develop site-specific crop management plans.
  • Analyze geospatial data to determine agricultural implications of factors such as soil quality, terrain, field productivity, fertilizers, or weather conditions.
  • Identify spatial coordinates, using remote sensing and Global Positioning System (GPS) data.
  • Analyze data from harvester monitors to develop yield maps.
  • Apply precision agriculture information to specifically reduce the negative environmental impacts of farming practices.
  • Demonstrate the applications of geospatial technology, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), geographic information systems (GIS), automatic tractor guidance systems, variable rate chemical input applicators, surveying equipment, or computer mapping software.
Other job titles for this occupation (22)

Agrintelligence Specialist (Agriculture Intelligence Specialist) · Agronomist · Agronomy Consultant · Crop Consultant · Crop Specialist · Precision Agriculture Analyst (Precision Ag Analyst) · Precision Agriculture Specialist (Precision Ag Specialist) · Precision Agronomist · Precision Farming Coordinator · Precision Technology Agronomist (Precision Tech Agronomist) · Agriculture Specialist · Agriculture Technician (Agriculture Tech) · Agronomy Specialist · Certified Crop Specialist · Extension Precision Agriculture Specialist · Field Agronomist · Field Sales Agronomist · GPS Field Data Collector (Global Positioning System Field Data Collector) · Migration Specialist · Precision Agriculture Technician (Precision Ag Tech) · Precision Farming Specialist · Technical Agronomist