A Rule Written for Another Age
A Cal/OSHA regulation rooted in the 1970s requires self-propelled agricultural equipment moving under its own power to have an operator stationed at the controls. The rule made sense when autonomous farm equipment belonged to science fiction and a driverless tractor meant someone had fallen off.
Nearly 50 years later, tractors can follow mapped routes, remain within geofenced boundaries, detect people and obstacles and stop automatically. But California still generally requires a human being at the controls whenever employees could enter the area.
The tractor has changed. The regulation has not.
Sacramento’s Innovation Paradox
This might be merely another example of government moving slowly if the consequences were not so serious. California growers face a persistent labor shortage, rising wages, agricultural overtime, increasingly expensive H-2A requirements and fierce competition from foreign producers that operate under very different labor and regulatory standards. Sacramento’s answer to nearly every agricultural problem is that growers must become more efficient, adopt new technology and do more with less.
Then, when the technology arrives, the state tells growers to put someone in the driver’s seat.
The Elevator Operator Problem
History has seen this before. Push-button elevators were commercially viable by the early 20th century, but elevator operators remained common for decades. Municipal codes continued to require attendants, the public distrusted the idea of riding alone and unions negotiated agreements protecting operator positions even in buildings equipped for automatic service. Safety was the stated concern, and early elevators certainly presented real hazards. But as automatic door-reopening sensors, floor-leveling systems, emergency interlocks, communications equipment and braking systems became standard, the safety rationale steadily weakened.
The 1945 New York City elevator strike helped expose the absurdity of having an entire city depend on people performing a function that machines could reliably perform themselves. Today, requiring a licensed operator to stand inside every elevator and press the button would seem ridiculous.
California is repeating that history in the fields.
Regulate the Risk, Not the Seat
The justification, of course, is safety. Tractors and other heavy equipment can cause serious injuries and fatalities. No responsible grower or equipment manufacturer disputes that reality. Autonomous equipment should not receive a free pass, and no one is asking for one.
But safety rules should measure whether equipment operates safely. They should not assume that the presence of a human operator is the only way to make it safe.
Modern autonomous equipment can incorporate obstacle-detection systems, cameras, radar, geofencing, audible warnings, emergency-stop controls, speed limitations and automatic shutdown features. International standards now address the design and testing of partially automated and autonomous agricultural machinery. The technology can record operating data and document near misses in ways a conventional tractor cannot.
A rule that simply requires a person at the controls does not account for any of this. It regulates the seating arrangement rather than the risk.
It can also produce the opposite of its intended result. An autonomous tractor can perform repetitive tasks in extreme heat, operate in areas recently treated with crop-protection products and remove employees from rollover and equipment-strike hazards. Requiring a person to remain on or immediately beside the machine may put a worker back into the very environment the technology was designed to avoid.
Studying the Future While Blocking the Present
Cal/OSHA itself has recognized that the old rule needs attention. After previously opposing petitions to allow autonomous agricultural vehicles, the agency acknowledged in 2024 that it had learned more about the technology and rescinded its general opposition. An advisory committee followed, bringing together regulators, growers, manufacturers, unions, worker advocates and researchers.
That was progress. But studying the future is not the same as permitting it.
California’s regulatory process can take years. Technology companies do not have years to wait while their capital dries up and their competitors establish themselves elsewhere. Growers cannot make long-term investments in equipment when the legal right to use it depends on a variance, an empty field or the hope that regulators will eventually rewrite a rule adopted before the personal computer.
A Field Is Not a Freeway
The state also should resist importing the debate over driverless trucks and robotaxis into agriculture. An autonomous tractor moving slowly within a defined field is not an 80,000-pound truck traveling on Interstate 5. It is not a Waymo navigating pedestrians, bicycles, traffic signals and public intersections. Agricultural equipment operates in controlled environments where access, routes, speed and work zones can be carefully managed by the employer.
Different risks call for different rules.
Protecting Jobs by Losing Them
Some opponents are less concerned about how autonomous tractors operate than about whether they operate at all. Beneath many of the safety arguments is a more basic fear that automation will displace workers.
That concern deserves an honest response. Technology changes jobs, and some tasks will require fewer people. Pretending otherwise would undermine the case for reform.
But refusing to automate will not preserve agricultural jobs if the farm itself becomes uncompetitive. California growers do not sell into a protected market. Buyers can obtain produce from other states: Mexico, South America and elsewhere. When labor and regulatory costs make California production uneconomic, acreage moves or disappears. The jobs follow it.
Automation also does not eliminate the need for people. It changes the work. Autonomous equipment must be programmed, monitored, maintained, repaired, transported and integrated into complex farming operations. These are safer and often better-paying jobs than many of the repetitive tasks the equipment replaces. The right policy is to help agricultural employees develop those skills, not to preserve every existing task indefinitely by law.
California can authorize autonomous agricultural equipment while adopting reasonable protections. Training and upskilling can help affected employees move into new positions. Equipment can be required to satisfy recognized safety standards, operate within designated zones, maintain incident data and include effective emergency controls.
Those protections would address legitimate worker concerns without making autonomous agriculture practically impossible.
Lead or Get Out of the Field
California prides itself on being the home of innovation. That claim rings hollow when the state welcomes agricultural technology at conferences, funds research at its universities and then bars growers from using the finished product in their fields.
The question is not whether autonomous agricultural equipment is coming. It is whether California farms will be allowed to use it before their competitors do.
Lawmakers should expressly authorize autonomous tractors and direct Cal/OSHA to establish clear, performance-based safety standards. The rules should protect workers, allow responsible deployment and give manufacturers and growers enough certainty to invest.
California can lead the next agricultural revolution, or it can regulate that revolution into another state or country. It cannot do both.
The greatest threat to California farm jobs is not an empty tractor seat. It’s an empty field.