When must a farm provide field water, toilets, and handwashing facilities?

Short answer

The text of § 1928.110 applies to an agricultural establishment where 11 or more employees are engaged in field hand labor on any given day.

The section requires the agricultural employer to provide covered employees, without cost, potable drinking water, toilets, handwashing facilities, maintenance, notice, and reasonable opportunities to use them.

The scope sentence uses 11 or more employees on any given day. It does not contain a previous-year lookback. Separate annual congressional limits on OSHA enforcement at certain small farms are not the same as the regulatory scope and are outside this page.

Who and what count

The standard defines the employer, establishment, and hand labor

An agricultural establishment is a business operation using paid employees to produce food, fiber, seed, seedlings, plants, or plant parts. The defined agricultural employer can include a person or entity that owns or operates the establishment, contracts in advance to buy a crop while exercising substantial production control, or recruits and supervises employees or manages the establishment’s conditions.

Hand-labor operations are agricultural activities performed by hand or with hand tools. Examples include hand cultivation, weeding, planting, and harvesting, plus hand packing in the field, on a moving machine, or in a temporary field packing shed. The definition excludes logging, care or feeding of livestock, and hand labor in permanent structures such as canning facilities or packing houses.

Potable drinking water

Water must be accessible, cool enough, sufficient, and individually dispensed

Potable water must be placed where all employees can readily reach it. It must be suitably cool and supplied in amounts sufficient for the temperature, humidity, work, and needs of all employees.

The employer must use single-use cups or drinking fountains. Common cups and dippers are prohibited. Water containers must preserve water quality, be covered, cleaned regularly, and refilled daily or more often as needed.

Toilets and handwashing

The ratio is one toilet and one handwashing facility for each 20 employees or fraction

For 21 covered employees, for example, the ratio calls for two of each facility. Toilets must be ventilated, screened, fitted with self-closing doors that latch from inside, and constructed for privacy. A handwashing facility must provide a basin, container, or outlet with enough potable water, soap, and single-use towels.

Toilets and handwashing facilities must be accessible, near each other, and within a one-quarter-mile walk of each hand laborer’s field work. Where terrain makes that infeasible, they must be at the closest vehicular-access point.

The toilet and handwashing requirement does not apply to employees performing field work for three hours or less during the day, including travel time to and from the field. The text does not extend that three-hour exception to the potable-drinking-water requirement.

Maintenance and use

Providing equipment is not enough

Toilets must remain operational, clean, and sanitary. Handwashing stations must be refilled as needed and kept clean. Waste disposal must not create unsanitary conditions.

The employer must tell each employee where the water and sanitation facilities are and allow reasonable opportunities to use them during the workday. The employer must also explain specified hygiene practices: using the facilities, drinking frequently—especially on hot days—urinating as needed, washing before and after toilet use, and washing before eating or smoking.

Official authority

Read the current field-sanitation standard

29 CFR 1928.110 — field sanitation ↗

OSHA State Plans directory ↗

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