Harvest Operations Manager

Overview

As a harvest operations manager, you can work on a range of farms that produce crops for human food, animal feed, or energy production. These crops will be grown outdoors or in protected environments like glass houses.

Farms can grow combinable crops, horticultural crops, or a mix of both. Combinable means those that are harvested with a combine harvester. They include barley, oats, wheat, and oilseed rape. Horticultural crops include vegetables, salad crops, mushrooms, root crops, herbs, and fruits.

You’ll usually work closely with the growing/crop manager. You’ll be responsible for managing the harvest successfully and storing the harvested crops safely.

You’ll also be responsible for managing the daily harvest plan and crop storage. This plan ensures crops are harvested at the right time to meet customer requirements and reduce losses.

You may also need to recruit and train the harvest team and make sure staff always follow health and safety rules.

You’ll need to be able to use a range of farm technology, equipment, and machinery safely.

As a harvest operations manager, you’ll need a flexible approach to work. You may need to work weekends and overtime, especially during busy periods.

You may need to have your own transport to get to work.

Responsibilities

As harvest operations manager your responsibilities might include:

Working with the growing/crop manager to manage crop production
Planning and overseeing harvest to make sure the farm achieves its production and financial targets
Storing crops in a way that meets safety and customer standards
Recruiting, training, and managing harvest employees
Overseeing health and safety for harvest employees
Making sure all buildings, equipment, and machinery are in good working order and meet safety regulations
Producing crop quality and quantity forecasts
Identifying and monitoring crop losses
Making sure records are correct and up to date
Monitoring the performance of the harvest team and use this information to set targets
Managing relationships with external contractors, suppliers, and consultants
Monitoring and reducing the farm’s impact on the environment by promoting sustainable practices and biodiversity
Overseeing farm finances, including purchases and other expenses
Helping the farm continue to improve and become more efficient
Monitoring and reducing the risk of pollutants
Managing the sales and marketing of crops

Personal Qualities

To work as a harvest operations manager, you should:

Have excellent planning and organisational skills
Be able to motivate and manage others and lead by example
Have strong communication and delegation skills
Have a good level of resilience
Have strong decision-making and problem-solving skills
Be able to deal with changes
Be able to suggest ideas to improve the business

Skills & Requirements

As a harvest operations manager, you’ll need good practical experience working in an arable or horticulture business.

You might have started your career as a harvest worker or crop production operative and developed your skills and knowledge over time.

Ideally, you’ll have experience in mentoring, supervising, or managing less experienced staff. You’ll also be keen to take on more responsibility.

You don’t necessarily require a specific or formal qualification to become a harvest manager. However, a qualification may increase your options. You might want to consider a technical qualification in agriculture or horticulture, or a degree in farm management.

This role would suit someone enthusiastic and with excellent leadership and planning skills.

As a harvest operations manager, you’ll have the following competencies in relation to overseeing crop harvest and storage. You will:

Manage technical operations to make sure land is used in a way that’s good for business and has minimum impact on the environment
Make sure harvest and post-harvest technology, machinery, vehicles, and structures are used correctly
Plan harvest operations
Make sure harvest operations are financially sustainable
Oversee the quality of the harvest
Make sure employees meet health and safety requirements
Make sure the farm recruits and trains harvest employees
Work with the crop production manager to ensure crops are of a high quality
Make sure crops are harvested and stored correctly
Make sure soil is managed during harvest so the business and farm environment is as sustainable as possible

Salary

The salary for a harvest operations manager is in the region of £35,000 to £50,000 per year.

This figure is for a full-time permanent position depending on level of experience, business type and location.

Within the agriculture and horticulture sectors there are often many associated benefits that are not reflected in the headline salary. These can include accommodation being provided or subsidised, travel pay, profit shares, vehicle use and production/performance bonuses.

Future Career Opportunities

As a harvest operations manager, there are opportunities for you to progress or develop your career by expanding the number of crops you work with, gaining promotion to other management roles, or by becoming a professional adviser in related areas, such as health and safety.

Qualifactions & Training

Courses which can help you on this career path include:

Level 3 Advanced Technical Certificate in Agriculture [dropdown – links to providers]

FdSc Agriculture and Farm Management

BSc Agriculture with Crop Management

BSc Applied Farm Management

BSc Agriculture

BSc Agri-Business

Apprenticeships

Crop Technician Level 3

Assistant Farm Manager Level 4