The Myth of “Experience” in Agriculture: Why Years on the Job Mean Nothing Without Evidence

Experience is one of the most powerful words in agriculture. It decides hiring, promotions, trust, and responsibility. When a worker says, “I have ten years of experience,” most farm owners accept it without question.

The assumption is simple. More years mean more competence. More years mean better performance. More years mean reliability. In reality, this assumption is one of the most costly myths in the agricultural sector.

Years do not equal skill

Years do not equal skill. Years do not equal discipline. Years do not equal consistency. Without evidence, “experience” is nothing more than a claim. It carries no measurable value, no verifiable history, and no guarantee of performance, yet farms make high-stakes decisions based on it every day.

Agriculture has normalised a system where workers move from farm to farm without any documented record of what they actually did. A herdsman with ten years on the job and a herdsman with six months of experience often look identical on paper. They both present a verbal summary. They both rely on someone to vouch for them. They both depend on trust instead of evidence.

This leaves farm owners guessing, and guessing is an expensive way to run any operation.

How the myth punishes the disciplined and rewards the unreliable

The absence of verifiable work history damages both sides of the labour equation. Workers who have been disciplined and consistent for years have no way to prove their value. Their wages do not reflect their skill because there is no record of their performance. They leave a farm and start again from zero.

On the other hand, workers who have been unreliable can easily reintroduce themselves as “experienced” because no system holds them accountable. Both competence and incompetence are hidden behind the same verbal claim.

Supervision without evidence is just a story

Supervisors often present their teams as experienced, yet they cannot show evidence of daily routines being completed correctly. Tasks might have been done poorly for years, yet still be packaged as “experience.” A worker who has repeated the same mistake for a decade still qualifies as experienced under the current system. Experience becomes not a mark of quality, but a measure of time spent repeating habits—good or bad.

The result is predictable. Farms rely on reputation instead of records. They hire workers without understanding their true strengths or weaknesses. They trust referrals that cannot be verified. Productivity suffers because no one can distinguish proven skill from assumed skill. The entire labour market becomes informal, opaque, and unreliable.

What real experience should mean

True experience is not measured in years. It is measured in evidence.

• The number of verified tasks completed.
• The consistency of daily routines.
• The accuracy of the work performed.
• The reliability documented over time.
• The discipline validated by supervisors.
• The traceability of a worker’s actual performance.

How Shambaboy replaces claims with proof

Shambaboy transforms agricultural labour by providing workers with verifiable work histories. Each task completed in the field is documented with in-app evidence. Supervisors validate the work with time and location data. Over time, a worker builds a digital profile that reflects real performance, not verbal claims. This becomes a portable identity that follows them from one farm to another.

For owners, this eliminates uncertainty. They no longer hire based on assumptions. They hire based on proof. They know who is reliable. They know who has performed consistently. They know who has demonstrated skill, not simply claimed it. Recruitment becomes intentional. Labour becomes predictable. Productivity becomes measurable.

Evidence makes agriculture transparent

The agricultural sector cannot advance while depending on unverifiable experience. The myth must be replaced with a system that captures, protects, and elevates real skill. When evidence becomes the standard, the labour force becomes more valuable, farms become more productive, and the industry becomes more transparent.

Years do not make a worker experienced. Evidence does.